by Morgan Rice
We’re burning through our remaining gas fast, and the dogs are showing no signs of slowing. If only there was somewhere to ride the bikes up and out of the crater, but it’s too steep.
Suddenly, I hear a scream. I look back and see Molly’s bike careening away as she and Charlie tumble to the ground.
“Charlie!” Bree screams.
The wolf-dogs pounce on them straightaway. I turn my bike around and race straight at them. Thankfully, they’re scared off and run away.
I leap off the bike and run over to where Molly and Charlie are sprawled on the ground, Molly cowering over him, protecting him with her whole body. I grab her by the shoulders and roll her back. There’s a huge pool of blood there.
Charlie wriggles out and flies right into Bree’s arms. Molly lies there panting, gritting her teeth in agony.
The dogs have torn a hole in her calf so deep I can see the bone. The sight turns my stomach. Ryan removes his shirt and bandages her up, but it soaks up with blood within a matter of moments. He looks back at me gravely.
“We can’t stay here,” I say. “There could be more packs waiting to get us. Can you walk, Molly?”
She tries to stand on her bitten leg but the second she puts weight on it she cries out in pain. I look up at the sheer face of the crater. Not only are we going to have to climb, but we’re going to have to carry Molly. There’s no way we’ll be able to push the bikes up while carrying her at the same time. We’re going to have to abandon them. From here on out, we’re going by foot.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My feet are blistered and swollen. My mouth is parched. I have no idea how long we’ve been walking. It feels like days. In fact, I think it has been days. The sun has set and risen several times.
With one hand, I cling onto Bree. She’s so weak it reminds me of the time back in the mountain cabin when she had a fever. If she had been well enough to travel with me to the cabin I’d found, where would we be now? Would we still be safe in the mountains, hiding from the slaverunners? Would I have avoided fighting in the arenas and being forced to become a murderer? Or would we have perished in the mountains? There would always have been something waiting to finish us off. Death seems to lurk around every corner.
I don’t even know if we’re heading in the right direction, but I pretend that we are to the others. I don’t want them to lose hope.
The metal collar around my neck is causing me sores. It weighs down heavily on my shoulders, making every step more painful than it needs to be.
Behind me, Molly stumbles along, propped up in the middle of Ryan and Ben. Her leg has become infected. There’s nothing we can do. Just like Rose’s arm back on the boat when we were floating in the Hudson, Molly’s leg will turn gangrenous and eventually kill her. I haven’t given up hope yet, but it’s certainly starting to wane. Sometimes when I look back at her, I can’t even tell if she’s still alive, and I start to wonder if it’s her ghost limping through the desert with us. Maybe we’re all dead. We’re all ghosts walking through purgatory.
Charlie stumbles to his knees for what must be the hundredth time. I pick him up, silently, and set him on his feet again. He doesn’t say a word, just whimpers his distress. Then once more, we trudge onward.
Watching Penelope and Jack deteriorate is just as painful as watching the children struggle. The dehydration has hit them both hard. Ryan’s taken to carrying Jack in a pouch across his chest, like he’s a newborn baby. For the first few days he whined, but he’s been quiet for a while now.
Penelope is still walking, but only just. Bree doesn’t have enough strength left in her to carry the dog, even though she’s small. Penelope seems to understand; she doesn’t complain, but I can tell she’s suffering and would love to be carried. We all would. Losing the bikes was the worst thing for all of us.
Charlie stumbles again. This time, when I go to pick him up, I find my arm muscles aren’t strong enough. I fall forward too and land in a heap on the ground.
Bree falls to her knees beside me. “Brooke,” she pleads, nudging me. “Get up. You have to get up. We have to carry on.”
But something about my stumbling seems to spread to the others, as though it’s an invitation that they too can give up. Ben unlinks Molly’s arm from round his shoulders and together, he and Ryan set her on the ground. Then they both slump down themselves, their tired eyes barely able to stay open.
“No,” Bree cries, her voice choked. “We can’t give up. We can’t.”
My tongue is swollen it’s been so long since I last spoke. “Let’s just have a quick nap,” I say.
“NO!” Bree screams. But her own voice is faltering. She can only just about croak out the word.
Realizing it’s futile to protest, she lies down next to me, resting her head against my splayed out arm. Penelope lies down too, and finally lets out the pained whimper she’s been holding in for days.
“Are we going to die?” Bree whispers in my ear, stammering on her tears.
I try to shush her, to calm her down. I want to tell her that we won’t die but I know it’s a lie. We can’t go on any farther. My legs won’t support my weight. The best I’d be able to do is crawl, but my arms are too weak as well. The only thing that could save us now is a rainstorm. Maybe with a bit of hydration we’d be able to make it another mile or so. Maybe Houston is just over the horizon. But we’ll never know, because the rain will never come.
I stare up at the unforgiving sky. It is a beautiful blue, the sun a blazing yellow, but between them they signify death. I find myself secretly praying someone dies and draws the attention of vultures. Then we’d be able to shoot one and feast on it. But I feel ashamed almost as soon as I think it. It’s better that we die together rather than live with that guilt.
“Do you really think Dad is still alive?” Bree says.
Her voice is floaty and sing-songy, as though she’s becoming delirious.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Do you think he still loves us?”
I let my heavy eyelids close, the scorching sun burning the tender skin. My mind has gone back to another place, to the time when my dad left for the army. I’d come home to find him and Mom arguing about it. He’d hit her and I’d been so filled with revulsion I wouldn’t say goodbye to him. He’d told me through the door that he would always love me, no matter what.
“Of course,” I say to Bree.
She doesn’t respond. When I look over, I see that her eyes are closed.
“Brooke,” I hear Molly say.
I manage to heave myself to my elbows and look back at her. She’s holding her bad leg and breathing rapidly. Despite the heat, her face has completely drained of color. She looks like she’s at death’s door.
“I need to tell you something,” she stammers through the pain.
“What?” I say, squinting against the glare of harsh sunlight.
“The crash,” she gasps. “Zeke and Stephan… survived.”
My heart hammers in my chest. “What do you mean?”
Tears streak down Molly’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. I lied. I knew you’d never leave if you thought there was a chance we could save them.”
She’s shaking her head so frantically, making her matted ginger hair fly all over the place. She licks her parched lips. I can’t help thinking that she’s using the last ounce of strength left in her to make this confession. It’s as though she’s trying to atone before she dies, to rid herself of sin just in case she’s about to meet her maker.
My grief is all consuming. It hurts so much my stomach aches. It’s more painful than the blisters, than the gnawing starvation. It’s more painful than the car crashes and the arena fights, than the snake bite and the slavers’ whips.
I fall back against the hard, cracked desert ground, feeling completely defeated, and let my eyes close.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Brooke. Brooke, wake up.”
My eyelids flutter open. I’m flat on my back on the parched earth. I can’t fee
l any pain at all; my whole body is comfortably numb.
There’s a blanket of stars above me. I squint, trying to work out who it is standing before me. But it’s impossible. The person is nothing more than a silhouette.
“Who are you?” I manage to say.
My voice is no longer parched. My tongue isn’t swollen, nor are my lips dry and cracked. But it’s still hard to get my words out. It’s like I can’t move, like I’m more than just numb, but paralyzed.
“It’s me,” the voice replies.
But I can’t place it. It sounds like a hundred different voices in one. I can’t even tell whether it’s a man or a woman.
I don’t know whether I’m dead or alive, awake or dreaming. All I know is that the pain has gone. I’m filled with peace and tranquility. My eyelids are so heavy, I could easily just fall back to sleep.
The person reaches out and touches my cheek with their fingers.
“Don’t fall asleep, Brooke. Not now. Not yet.”
As I finally place the voice, my heart clenches. Because it belongs to Rose. I can’t make out her features in the darkness, I can only conjure a memory of what she looks like.
“How did you get here?” I stammer, confused by her presence.
“You brought me with you,” she replies, touching my heart gently. “I’m in here.”
As her hand presses into my chest, I realize that it’s not Rose sitting beside me anymore. It’s Flo.
“Thank you for looking after him,” she says. “For taking care of Charlie all this time.”
“Flo?” I stammer.
“I don’t blame you, Brooke,” she says. “You did everything you could for me.”
She reaches down and presses a kiss to my forehead. But as she straightens up, it’s no longer Flo. It’s my mom looking down at me.
Disorientated and slightly panicked, I try to shake my head. My heart is fluttering, my breath coming in short, anxious gasps.
“Mom, I didn’t want to leave you.”
“I know,” she whispers. Then she repeats the words Flo said a moment ago. “I don’t blame you, Brooke. You did everything you could for me.”
Emotion begins to well inside of me. All these people, all my dead friends, my mom; it’s like they’re saying goodbye.
I try to reach out for my mom, to touch her and feel her hand in mine, but I can’t move at all. Even as I struggle against whatever invisible force is keeping me paralyzed, I can sense that the person has transformed again, that it’s no longer my mom sitting beside me.
“We would have made a good team, you and me,” the voice says.
It’s instantly recognizable as Logan’s. I gasp, but I can’t see his face. How I wish I could look into his eyes one last time.
“You can let me go now, Brooke,” Logan says. “You can be with him.”
“With who?” I stammer.
“With whomever you choose.”
I try to reach out for Logan but my arm feels like it’s pinned to my side. I can’t move at all.
“I don’t want to choose,” I say. “I can’t. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then let fate decide,” he says. “Like it did with us.”
I don’t know what to make of his words, but it’s too late to try and decipher their meaning. His silhouette is moving, standing up and leaving an empty, yawning space beside me. Starlight illuminates the figure but doesn’t show me any of his features. I don’t want him to leave but I can’t stop him. I watch helplessly as he paces across the desert ground, leans down, and picks up Molly in his arms.
“No!” I shout. “Don’t take her! Please!”
But Logan doesn’t listen. He holds Molly’s limp body in his arms. Her hair splays over and swings in the breeze as he starts to walk away. Jack the dog trots along beside him.
I watch helplessly as they disappear into the distance. My heart aches. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, but wherever my mind is right now, I know my body is giving up. This is what dying feels like. Like floating and falling all at once. Like a horrible, dark chasm opening up inside of you. I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to die here. But I don’t think I get a choice. The fight is leaving me.
As I lie there, my weak arm gesturing in the direction Logan went, I see something else coming toward me. Another ghost? Another person from my past come to haunt me?
The person is drawing closer and closer. When they reach me, I notice that they’re wearing army fatigues. They bend at the knees, and shadows judder against their face, obscuring their features.
“You can do better than this, soldier,” the voice says.
It’s my dad’s voice. I recognize it instantly.
“I can’t go on,” I say. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”
“Not on my watch, soldier.”
In a split second, he disappears, taking the blanket of stars and the dark, empty sky with him. Suddenly, everything is replaced by the blistering heat, the bright, white daylight, and the searing pain of dehydration and starvation. There’s a noise in my ear like a roaring sound. It takes me a long time to realize it’s the sound of an engine.
I’m in a vehicle, moving forward, bumping along. Is this another dream? I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore.
“She’s waking up, sir!” someone shouts.
A woman’s face appears above me. She’s a soldier, dressed in a US military uniform. Her face is harsh and lined, but she’s looking at me in a kind way.
“Can you tell me your name?” she says.
I try to speak, but my mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton wool. The soldier helps scoop my head up in her hand. She tips water from a canteen into my mouth. It’s tepid, but I don’t care. It tastes delicious. I still can’t tell whether I’m dead or alive—but if I did pass away during the night, this is surely heaven.
“Brooke,” I finally say. “Brooke Moore.”
The soldier’s features change right away. She looks over at someone out of my sight line.
“Did you hear that?” she says to the other person. “She says her name is Brooke Moore. You’d better call the Commander.”
I reach out and grab the soldier’s arm, relieved to discover I’m no longer paralyzed.
“Where’s my sister?” I stammer. “My friends? Did they make it?”
The woman smiles. “They made it,” she says. “And so did you. Brooke, we’re taking you to your father.”
PART FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The road is bumpy, making the journey tough going. Every part of my body is aflame with pain. I slip in and out of consciousness, and each time I come around, I’m expecting to discover that it has all been a dream, that there is no US military vehicle taking us to Dad. But each time I am rewarded by the jolting sensation of the truck, by the sounds of its tires racing across the parched earth, and by the sight of the US marine as she tends to me, giving me water to sip and chewy protein bars for energy. Not long ago I was certain we were facing death, that my dead friends were appearing before my eyes in order to take me to the afterlife. Now, it is as though I’ve been given a second chance.
I can’t believe what is happening. My dad is alive, and we have been rescued, right when it looked like the end had arrived. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined it would happen this way.
The truck I’m traveling in is part of a convoy. For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, we’re all traveling separately. I think of Bree and pray that she is being cared for as well as I am. I wonder if she’s been told that our dad is alive yet, or whether she knows we’re on our way to be reunited with him. I try to picture her reaction; I know she won’t have held back her tears in the way I did. At the very least, I hope she’s with Charlie, that the two of them are together, perhaps even with Penelope beside them. I don’t dare let myself consider that the dog may not have survived, though I know it’s a possibility.
I hear the sound of brakes and start to feel the truck slowing down.
>
“What’s happening?” I say to the soldier who has been caring for me.
I try to sit up but she guides me back down.
“We’re at the compound,” she explains. “There are checkpoints to go through. Don’t worry. We’ll be there very soon.”
I try to relax but it’s almost impossible. I feel like I did when I was a little child waiting for my dad to come home after being stationed abroad for months. Only the sensation inside of me is a thousand times stronger than it was when I was younger, because it hasn’t been months, it has been years. And while the concept of my dad dying while he was away was scary when I was younger, it still seemed abstract and unimaginable. But I’ve spent the last four years assuming I will never ever see him again. The sensation inside of me is more akin to discovering that someone has come back from the dead.
I can hear the sound of a chain-link fence being opened. Then the truck picks up speed and we’re bobbing along once again. The jolting movement smooths out and I know that means we’re riding on asphalt, that we’re on a proper road again. I wonder if it’s a new road, built after the war, or if the people of the compound managed to protect one that was already there. Nothing else in the south seemed to have survived the bombs, so I presume that means they’ve been rebuilding.
There are many more checkpoints to pass through, and row after row of fencing. If I’d thought Fort Noix was heavy-handed with its layers of guards and outposts, it was nothing compared to this. The fences are tall and topped with barbed wire. Guards are positioned all along them, though from where I am lying prone in the truck I can only see the tops of their heads. But I recognize their uniforms and the insignia of the marines. It gives me a sense of enormous familiarity and nostalgia.
