by Kelli Kimble
In front of us, a few of the others were looking back at us with curious glances. Except for the tankers ahead, nobody else was speaking, and though our voices were low, they might have overheard. I waved at them, hoping to ease their curiosity.
Vacha didn’t respond.
“I know it sounds silly,” I continued. “But Adam only wants tankers around. He thinks the rest of us are inferior.”
“I came from a tank,” she scoffed.
“But, you had a childhood outside the tank. Didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course. The extended tank program came after I was born.”
“Hey!” shouted one of the tankers behind us. I turned and saw the one directly behind us, drawing his sonic gun. He pointed it towards our group, and behind him, I saw Willow pop up. My eyes widened. She wasn’t dead.
“Watch out!” I pushed Vacha away from me. She tripped over a root and stumbled backwards, falling to the ground.
“Hey,” she complained. She turned her head and took in the tanker’s raised weapon. Her eyes widened.
There was a rumble, and a loud report, but it wasn’t from the tanker’s gun. He fell forward, revealing Willow, ducking behind a nearby tree. I rushed to grab the downed tanker’s weapon. Ahead of us, the line erupted in turmoil as the front tankers pushed through towards us.
“What’s going on?” the first one demanded.
I shot her in the chest.
She stumbled backwards, impeding the response of the tankers behind her. I spun behind a tree, peeked around the other side, and shot another tanker. He howled in pain; it hadn’t been a direct hit.
Someone started screaming, and the group of people began to scatter into the woods. The tankers mixed with the others, and I couldn’t tell who was whom. Sonic reports boomed through the trees, but thankfully, none were directed at me. I crouched at the base of my tree.
Vacha clawed her way up from the ground. “You killed that tanker,” she said, her chest heaving. “I saw you. You killed her.”
“I know,” I said. “And if you don’t want one of them to kill you, I’d suggest hiding—or at least shutting up.”
“Fiona?” Willow whispered from across the path we’d forged. “How many more?”
“Five more from the front, if you’ve taken care of the back.”
“They’re out. What about Adam? He isn’t with you.”
“He and Eve went ahead in a rover. There’s more with them. Six more.”
Vacha was calming down, and she leaned down to inspect the tanker I’d shot. “She’s dead.”
“I know,” Willow and I answered at the same time.
She squatted next to the body, her back blocking my view of the tanker. But, she turned around, revealing the tanker’s gun in her hand. “You can’t do that. You can’t go around killing people.” She pointed the gun at me, and a sob escaped her.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Willow said, training her own gun at Vacha.
“She’s a murderer,” Vacha said. “And you probably are, too. You killed all those people behind us, didn’t you?”
“Those people were taking you to a secluded place to kill you,” said Willow.
Vacha squinted her eyes. “That’s what she said, too,” she waved the gun at me. “And I don’t believe it for one second—”
Willow shot her. Vacha blinked once, and her grip loosened on the gun, lowering it. But, she must have found a bit of resolve as she faded, because she tightened her hand purposefully and pointed it at me. Willow shot again, and Vacha was overtaken. She crumpled to the ground.
“Why did you shoot her?” I said, pocketing Vacha’s gun. “She wasn’t a tanker.”
“If she’s not with us, then she’s against us,” Willow said. She scanned the woods around us. Nobody was visible, and it was quiet now. She pointed further up, where the front tankers had been heading. “Swen circled around that way. Let’s move that way and try to meet up with him.”
I nodded, and we started moving forward. I kept low and darted from tree to tree, scanning the area around us as I stopped at each trunk. At the base of one trunk, I found one of my group. She was holding her leg, her eyes averted and her teeth clenched as she tried to quietly suck in breath.
“Are you hurt?” I whispered.
She nodded and pointed to her leg, still not looking at it. I touched her leg to extend it and inspect her injury, but withdrew my hand when I felt the heat emanating from it.
“Shot me,” she said. “I can’t feel it, but I know it’s bad. Is it bad? Am I bleeding?”
“You aren’t bleeding,” I said. I scanned the trees around us again and could see only Willow. Across the path, she was crouched at the bottom of her own tree, giving me a perplexed look. I steeled myself and touched her leg again, pulling it to extend it. But, something wasn’t right. It drooped, like a thread without tension between the warp and woof. I massaged my fingers deep into her flesh and looked back up at the woman with a start. It was like her knee and the surrounding bones . . . they were missing. That was the heat. She’d been shot in the leg.
Willow crept over to us. “What’s the problem?” she asked.
“She’s been shot. In the leg. I think—I think the shot liquefied her bones.”
“What?” said the woman. She batted my hands away and tried to lift her leg towards her reach. “That isn’t possible; I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. I can’t feel anything.”
“That’s probably for the better,” Willow said.
I bent over her leg, trying to decide what to do to help her. But, Willow didn’t give me the chance. She shot her in the head at point-blank range. The woman fell limply against the tree trunk.
“Even you can’t argue that we couldn’t have helped her,” Willow said. “If she didn’t die from exposure, she was going to be mauled by wild animals. We did her a favor.”
She was right; I couldn’t argue with that. But, it didn’t mean that I agreed. I swallowed once and nodded. I was beginning to think that Willow had a lot more of Barrow in her than she’d let on.
“Come on,” she said. And I followed—not because I wanted to, but because I was at a loss for any other course of action.
We found two other people dead in the undergrowth. The tankers had managed to reduce our numbers to only Willow, Swen, myself, and five others. We were evenly matched—if we could find them, and if there weren’t others dead in the shrubs. But, I suspected the tankers would regroup and head to the village—to Adam.
Swen was waiting at the mouth of the canyon for us. I shivered when I saw it. There was no way out, other than the small, dried-up creek bed that flowed out of its mouth in the rainy season. The canyon walls were sandy and not conducive to climbing, and the creek bubbled up from an underground source. It would have been the perfect place for them to corral us and easily kill us.
“I think they’ve circled back to the village,” said Swen.
“That’s what I figured,” I said. “But, which one?”
Swen shrugged. “I would guess yours. It’s much less primitive than the queen’s village.”
“What about the others?” I asked.
“From my vantage point . . . I’m pretty sure they’re all dead. Except maybe one woman; it seemed like she might’ve suffered a minor shot.”
“In the leg,” I said.
“Yeah, I saw her sit down, could hear her crying. Maybe she’ll make it.”
I shook my head and tried not to meet Willow’s eyes. “No, she isn’t with us.”
“Oh. Either way, I guess they would still outnumber us. We’ll just have to use the element of surprise to our advantage. And who knows the village better than you, Fiona?”
“I suppose that’s true,” I said.
Willow grunted. “It has to be true. None of them can survive. Not one.”
My stomach flip-flopped. It was clear that Willow hadn’t done all this just to rescue me because I was her friend. She hadn’t given up her idea that none of us sho
uld survive; she wanted humanity to implode in on itself. She believed it was nothing less than what we deserved. I wondered if Swen was aware of her conviction; if he knew that she intended to do away with the three of us, as well.
Not that we mattered. Willow and I were well past childbearing years.
“What about the tanks?” I said. “Even if all of us are dead, the tanks have already been seeded for the next generation.”
“We disabled the power. Nothing will grow in the tanks without food or oxygen.”
Swen cocked his head but didn’t comment. I willed him to ask why we would be dead—to question what Willow was really planning. But, the moment swept by, and he didn’t seem to fit the pieces together in his mind.
“We’ll wait until dark,” Willow said. “We’ll pick them off, one-by-one.”
“That won’t work,” I said. “They’ll be watching for us with their tablets. We won’t get anywhere near the village without them knowing. We have to get them to let their guard down. We’re going to have to wait.”
Willow took that in. I could tell that she didn’t like it—that she wanted this to be done right now. But, I needed time. And I was right; they would see us coming and easily overpower us. She had to agree with that, at least.
“Where are we going to wait?” she finally asked.
“I’m sure they’ll think we’ll hide in the other village. We have to go somewhere else. Somewhere they aren’t familiar with.”
“They don’t realize Swen and I are alive,” Willow said. “It’s only you they think is out here.” Her hand moved casually to her hip, right near her pocket—where I knew her gun was stowed.
“Some of the tankers might have seen you,” I said, trying to buy myself time. “I saw you. After the first one went missing, I saw Swen in the brush. And I saw you quite clearly after you attacked.”
“That doesn’t mean that they did.”
“It doesn’t mean that they didn’t,” said Swen. “They’re not stupid. And they have huge egos. They won’t, for a minute, believe that someone in that escorted group fought back hard enough to take out half of them. And the two we killed inside—they’ll know for sure when those two don’t show up.”
Willow’s arm relaxed slightly.
“I know a place where we could hide for a few days,” I said. “They aren’t likely to know about it, and it should have a small stock of supplies.”
“Sounds good,” said Swen.
“All right. Lead the way.”
◆◆◆
We spent nearly three weeks in one of the village’s hunting outposts. It was a small cabin, located high up on a ridge that was probably several miles from the village, but its high vantage point gave us a view of the village on clear days.
The cabin was dirty and unkempt but had a pantry of pickled vegetables, lots of ale, and enough hunting tools and implements to supply a dozen hunters. I taught the two of them how to use a bow, and that was how we managed to occupy our minds while we waited. I needed a lot of distraction; otherwise, my thoughts would turn back to Willow’s plan. On the one hand, I believed she was right—that the tankers were an abomination, and we had to rid the world of them. But, on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure that the three of us dying needed to be included in that plan. What would be the harm, after all? We wouldn’t be able to procreate. Our species would simply die off when the last of us died.
I needed Swen’s help.
But, Willow didn’t make it easy. Though she never stopped acting as if we were the best of friends, she clearly didn’t trust me or Swen. She never left the two of us alone together. She didn’t seem to sleep and only went to relieve herself when I agreed to go with her.
I began to hope that she would simply let her guard down—or that Swen would question the situation. But, he either didn’t realize there was a situation, or he already knew. That left me with a countdown of our final days.
On the 20th day, Willow announced that she thought it was time to go and finish the tankers. I went along with everything she said. From her memories of the village layout, she’d crafted a plan, and when she mapped it out in the dusty ash of the cabin fireplace, I had to admit that she probably was going about it the right way. Willow insisted that we review the plan over and over—so much so that by the time she was satisfied, it was too late in the day to carry it out.
“We’ll leave at daybreak tomorrow,” she said, when I pointed out that the afternoon shadows were lengthening. “That’s good. Because we’ll need a good night’s rest. We’ll need to be at the top of our game tomorrow.”
I nodded, and searched Swen’s expression for even the slightest indication of dread. He appeared to be oblivious.
At dinner, I managed to water down some of the ale, and I served the rest to Willow.
“Port would be quite upset if we let this ale go to waste,” I said, passing a watered-down mug to Swen, and a regular mug to Willow. They both accepted it, and I toasted to Port’s memory, then to the memory of as many other people as I could think of. I kept the mugs full, making it difficult for them to gauge how much they’d actually had.
Willow stood and lifted her mug, and she swayed slightly. “I toast the spiro. If not for it, there’d be so many more to take care of now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Swen.
“It means that all good things come to an end,” I said.
“No, that isn’t what it means, silly,” said Willow. “It means that the spiro caused the sickness.”
“How do you know that?” asked Swen.
“Because,” she said, laughing, “I’m the one who put the sickness in the spiro.”
Finally, Swen was clueing in. “Why would you do that?” he asked, hiccoughing.
“I wanted the extended tank program to end,” she explained. “I thought it would change Leo’s mind.”
Swen stared at her, his face slack. Then, he began to laugh. At first, it was just a giggle, but it escalated to all-out belly laughter in only a few moments. Tears ran down his face, and he clutched at his stomach.
Willow laughed, too, but I think it was only because she was drunk.
I waited for them to stop. “What’s so funny?” I asked, when Swen finally calmed down.
“It’s just that nothing ever changed Leo’s mind. When the sickness started, he actually doubled the work going on for the tank program.” He wiped tears from his face.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Swen was too drunk to get it. If he hadn’t known about the spiro, then he didn’t know about Willow’s death-to-all plan. And he wasn’t going to get it. Not without someone explaining it to him.
I poured more ale into Willow’s mug. “To Leo!” I shouted, lifting my mug.
Swen and Willow bumped their mugs against mine, sloshing ale over our hands. Willow raised her glass to drink, and I lifted it higher for her, forcing her to drink the whole mug at once.
“Whew!” She held out her mug. “Fill me up again. I can’t believe I had all that guilt about the spiro, and it didn’t make a bit of difference.”
“Actually, Adam told me that it helped him out a lot,” I said, pouring more into her mug. Oh, no. I wish I hadn’t said that. But, she didn’t seem to notice that I’d mentioned Adam.
She drank some more of the ale. “You ever wonder what happens to you when you die?” she asked.
“I suppose that’s a matter of faith,” I said. “I’ve always thought whatever happens, it would be a great relief from what life is like. When you don’t occupy your body, you aren’t limited by its borders anymore.”
Swen studied me for a moment. “How very primitive,” he said. “You believe in a soul?”
“I believe there’s something inside me that isn’t part of my physical nature. It’s the part of me that thinks and feels and dreams. Some people might call it a soul,” I said.
There was a slosh and a thump. Willow had passed out and spilled her ale.
“Now, that’s a waste of
ale,” said Swen.
Seeing my chance, the effect of the drink waned. I grabbed Swen’s hand and dragged him outside. “You’ve got to listen to me,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Willow doesn’t just want to kill the tankers. Did you know that?”
“Who else is there to kill?” he asked.
“Us. The three of us.”
“Us?” He pointed at his chest and belched. “Us?” he repeated.
“Yes. She wants to end the human race. She thinks the tanker program will ruin civilization—that we’ll never recover from it.”
“I suppose she has a point,” he said. He sat on a log to steady himself. “But, I’m not ready to die.”
“Me neither. We have to do something.”
He shrugged. “What can we do? We need her to execute the plan.”
“Do we? Do we need to execute the plan?”
“Yeah. We do. Those tankers took everything from us, and they have to pay. They should pay. I’m going to make them pay.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “I haven’t always been a brave man, Fiona. I’m ashamed of how I was before. But now . . . now that I know what I’m capable of . . . I can’t go on leaving things the way they are. They have to pay.”
“Is dying the only way to pay?” I asked.
“It’s the only way they’ll understand.”
I nodded.
“We have to go along with her plan. It’s the only way,” he repeated.
“All right. When they’re all dead, what do we do? Do we kill Willow?”
Swen worried his hand over his knee. I’d not noticed how he had tanned somewhat and built up a bit of muscle during our weeks outside. He looked more like a villager than a mountain native. “I suppose that’s what we’ll have to do if we mean to survive,” he said.
“We’ll still be the end. There’ll be no more after us.”
He sighed. “It’ll be lonely, I suppose. But, I don’t want to die.”
“Agreed.”
Chapter 12
It turned out that the hangover was too much for Willow. The three of us—some of us more than others—nursed headaches all day long. We stayed in the cabin and rested. But, I knew we wouldn’t be able to postpone it another day.
