There was nowhere to hide.
The scallions stood only as high as his shins. Clusters of green that sprouted from the dark earth in leafy spike-clusters that whipped past the group as they ran. The field went on for hundreds of yards. Ken wished he and the others were in a corn field, though it was the wrong season for it. Something they could get lost in, could weave around and lose sight of the person – people? – following them.
He had the impulse to drop to the ground. A futile gesture, but one that was nearly overwhelming nonetheless. Like ostrich DNA was built into some central part of him, the need to bury his head in the sand rearing up at the worst possible time.
He forced himself on. But held back at the same time. He could have outpaced the others, especially Maggie and Buck, but they all ran in a tight group. They had been separated once, and none of them were willing to part again.
He risked a glance back.
A huge form leaped across the irrigation canal. Elijah. Either he hadn’t seen the bridge they used to ford the water, or simply hadn’t deigned to use it.
He landed on the other side of the bank. A prodigious jump that probably would have made Ken start clapping in admiration in any other circumstances. Now, though, it just made him feel leaden with fear.
The rain drowned everything in mud. It dragged at their feet. Leeched their speed away.
And, unfortunately for Elijah, it also wore away the bank of the canal. He barely landed before his feet fell out from beneath him. His arms wheeled a single time, a huge pair of circles that seemed like he was trying to take the air. A giant bird that had suddenly and unexpectedly been stripped of its ability to fly.
He fell backward. Dropped out of sight into the canal. Ken saw a single hand raised – a hand that was quickly swept downstream with the current.
The hand disappeared.
This time Ken came even closer to clapping. But he almost stumbled, and that brought him back to the reality of the fact that they were still running for their lives.
Worse, he realized that another form had made it across the gate. Smaller. So surefooted it seemed like he wasn’t balancing but simply walking across the water.
Ken’s group already had a good lead. The rain obscured things.
But there was only one person who moved like that.
Aaron.
63
“Guys,” panted Christopher.
“I see it,” said Ken.
“See what?” said Buck. He glanced back. “Oh.” That was all he said, but the single syllable conveyed a wealth of worry.
Maggie said nothing. Nor did she look back. She would not waste the effort. She was totally zeroed in on the only job that mattered to her: putting one foot in front of the other, adding inch after inch, yard after yard to their flight.
The rain slammed down, then lightened a bit, then pummeled them again. Ken was reminded of sparring matches he’d been in with some of the better fighters. People so good they could toy with him. They pounded him, then backed off long enough for him to regain his breath, then went back on the attack.
Toying with him.
So Mother Nature was against them as well, eh? Well, that figured.
Buck slipped. Almost went to one knee. Righted himself. Ken thought it was mostly because he didn’t want to let Hope touch the ground. The big man grimaced as he ran. Ken couldn’t be sure if he’d twisted something or if he was just mad at himself for the near fall.
They were almost halfway through the field. A surprise: Ken hadn’t thought they would make it this far.
Not that it mattered much. He glanced back.
Aaron was still coming. Not impossibly fast, but fast enough. Slow and steady in the downpour – but this wasn’t a story of tortoise and hare, but tortoise and slower tortoise. He was going to catch them. If not in this field, then in the next one. Or the one after that.
Ken looked around for something they could use. A weapon. A way to even the odds. But all he saw was empty land, broken only by crops and farm equipment. There wasn’t even a tractor they could use to escape. Just watering equipment, a few sheds that he knew simply housed pumps or electrical relays. Maybe a few tools, but that wasn’t worth the time it would take to check out.
Aaron had a gun. And in the game of gun, water, tools, gun beat everything.
Ken kept looking around. Just water and tools, water and tools, water –
He almost stumbled. Realizing….
“Buck,” he said, and pointed. “Do you know how to get that thing moving?”
Buck looked. “Yeah.” But he looked confused. “So?”
Ken grinned. “Where do we go to start it?”
64
Ken veered to the side. A slight angle that would hopefully get them there without lengthening the run so much that Aaron caught up to them. He also hoped he was taking them to the right spot.
Apparently he was, because Buck didn’t object. Halfway there, the big man suddenly realized what they were going to do. Not just what his part was, but what the point was. He glanced back and said, “I don’t know if we have time for this.”
“I’m open to better ideas,” said Ken.
Buck was silent. Nothing better, apparently.
“Guys, what are we doing?” said Christopher.
“I’ll tell you if you promise never to call me Bucky again,” said the big man. He was barely panting, Ken realized. Apparently the contractor was in good shape.
Ken realized he wasn’t panting, either. The workouts at the dojo had kept him in good stead.
Christopher didn’t respond. Either because he’d figured out where they were going or because the deal Buck had offered just wasn’t worth it to him.
Maggie said nothing. Still focused entirely on the run. On saving her children.
Sally, as ever, padded in silence. Wet and likely tired, but uncomplaining. Touching the sleeping/unconscious girls, licking and nipping at their trailing feet. Kisses from a cat that normally would consider preying on something so small.
They made it.
Buck didn’t put Hope down, just started fumbling with the controls. He glanced back. So did Ken.
Aaron was still coming. Near enough now that they could see his bad arm dangling at his side. His good hand holding the gun.
“This is going to be close,” said Buck.
65
“Is it going to start?” said Christopher. Apparently he’d figured out what they were doing.
“Should,” grunted Buck.
He made a last movement.
The sound of rushing water. A sudden increase in the rain-sounds. The squeak and grind of metal and rubber.
A lot of people didn’t know that, before the Change, Idaho was actually a high-tech state. Over seventy percent of its exports were in the science and technology sector, and it had been one of the leading areas in semiconductor technology since the nineteen seventies.
For all that, though, most people thought of it as a primarily agrarian state. And one of its most interesting features was the integration of science and agriculture, of suburban life with rural industry. Subdivisions of upper-class homes sat surrounded by farmland.
The farms were everywhere. Everyone grew accustomed to them. And not just the farms, but the features of the farms. The propane tanks that sat on so many of them. The rusted farm equipment that seemed to be part and parcel of many plots. The tractors chewing their way across fields like solitary locusts.
Even the huge center pivot irrigation systems just became part of the landscape; one more invisibility to be seen but unseen.
Still, they never failed to amaze visitors, to arouse curiosity when seen for the first time.
They were many large farms’ answer to home sprinkler systems. Only instead of a small sprinkler head that popped up at the corners of a lawn and spit out a bit of water once a day, this was a massive object that stretched half the length of a field and resembled nothing so much as the desiccated spine of some strange beast.
The irrigation system was a huge pipe, suspended by wheels soldered to it in an A-frame every eighty to one hundred feet along its length. In between the wheels, sprinkler hoses dangled. The whole thing was connected at the center of the field to a turbine that turned it on a center axis, allowing it to travel around the field, watering the entirety of it in a grand circle over the course of hours or days, depending on the speed of the motor and settings. Most got water from wells that pumped from the underground rivers that flowed beneath the Gem State.
The rushing noise of the huge pipe increased as the water rushed along its length. The wheels turned. The gaunt construction moved, its far length held fast by the pivot as though it were playing the world’s slowest game of crack-the-whip.
The sprinklers spewed water in a white torrent that mixed with the already-falling rain. Ken felt momentarily bad for the farmer that owned this land. His crops were probably going to be ruined by the overwatering.
“That isn’t going to stop Aaron for long,” said Christopher.
“No,” agreed Ken. “But he can’t see us now.” He pointed at the white curtain between them and the cowboy who had become their hunter. “We can move to the side and he can’t see us.”
Maggie finally spoke. Desperation and exhaustion battled for possession of her voice. “But where?” she said. “There’s still nowhere to go.”
66
Maggie was wrong. There was one place to go. Not a place she was going to like. But one place was better than no place.
Next to the pivot of the sprinkler system there were several buckets, gray plastic containers about two feet long, a foot and a half wide, and a foot deep.
“Everyone grab one of those,” said Ken.
They did without question.
“Come on,” he said. Began running. They followed, again without asking. Even though he was leading them in a direction that probably made no sense to any of them.
Back where they had come.
He looked behind. Aaron hadn’t come through the sprinklers yet. Ken doubted that was because the cowboy couldn’t get through the streams of water. More likely he was just being careful; wary of a trap that would take him out.
Good. They needed the extra time.
“We can’t go back to the train,” said Christopher. “Theresa’s there. And there’s at least one gun still in play.”
“I know,” said Ken.
“Can’t just cross back over the canal, either,” said Buck. “We’re not that far down from the train. She’ll probably see if we do that.”
“I know that, too.”
They ran in silence.
Ken looked back again. He thought he saw a dark form in the water of the irrigation sprinkler.
Aaron stepped through.
He looked to his right, then straight ahead. Both of the logical directions the group might have taken.
Then he looked to his left. Saw them. The one direction that made no sense.
He once more gave chase.
67
They couldn’t outrun him. There were two people carrying children, and the other two wouldn’t leave them behind.
Ken wasn’t a math teacher, but that was a simple enough equation even for him to figure out.
So they had to have a vehicle. No tractor sat in view, no sturdy work truck hunkered in the field. Whoever ran this farm must have been offsite the day of the Change. Working another field, perhaps. Dead in a field of turnips somewhere, or one of those who had run madly after the train.
But there was no machine that would carry them away from Aaron. And that meant they would have to rely on the one thing that moved faster than he did.
The irrigation canal.
In dry weather, the canal water could move quickly – a few miles an hour.
Now….
“In,” said Ken.
“WHAT?” shouted Christopher.
Ken looked back. Aaron was closer than he should have been. Ken felt suddenly like he was starring in a Terminator remake. Only this Terminator was someone who had once been a friend.
Still was a friend. That was the worst part. Ken believed that Aaron still cared for all of them. But he was going to capture them. Decide the best course.
And then execute it.
Good people didn’t always agree.
And Ken couldn’t take a chance that Aaron would come down on their side.
He looked back at the others. “Hold the buckets. Use them as flotation.”
“No way.” Christopher was shaking his head. Backing away.
“So you climb skyscrapers, but you’re afraid of a little water, huh?” said Buck. He was already down on his bottom, scooting to the edge of the canal. Hope was slung high on his shoulder. Ken hoped he could hold her high enough to keep her safe.
“Dude, that’s just crazy. This is suicide.”
Ken shrugged. “Fine. Stay and wait for Aaron.”
Christopher sighed. Then forced a smile to his face. A long way from the smile he had worn before, but it still gladdened Ken to see it. “You only live once, right?”
He jumped in. Dove right over Buck’s head, into the canal. His bucket was the only thing that didn’t disappear below the water. In a moment he surfaced, clutched the bucket, and was swept away.
Ken reached out a hand.
Maggie took it.
Buck was halfway into the water. The current grabbed him as well. Dragged him off.
Ken helped Maggie switch the carrier and Liz around to its back-carry configuration, hitching it as high as he could. He tried to take it from her halfway through the process, but she bared her teeth. Half-joking… but half-serious.
Ken pushed his bucket at her.
“No,” she said, pushing it back.
“Take it,” he insisted. And bared his teeth in a mockery of the expression she had just made. It made him wonder what she thought of his new Beverly Hillbillies look, the gap in his front teeth no doubt presenting quite the sight.
She didn’t seem to notice. Just kissed his cheek as she took the extra bucket.
She slid into the water. And slid away.
68
Sally looked at Ken with an expression that he couldn’t help but think looked exasperated, as though the snow leopard were saying, “Don’t you know cats don’t bathe?” The cat loped off on the side of the canal. Apparently rain was acceptable, but jumping into an irrigation ditch was an unreasonable demand. Still, Ken didn’t worry about the cat’s ability to keep pace.
He moved to the edge of the bank himself.
Gunfire barked. He didn’t know if Aaron was firing at him, or just shooting in the air. He hoped it was a warning shot. But it didn’t change his next move. His family was sweeping down the canal, so he was hardly going to wait where he was, hands up and hoping for mercy.
He jumped the last bit and landed in the canal.
The water swept over him.
As a kid he had always thought it would be fun to do this. To jump in with an inner tube, maybe a snorkel. Or just go with nothing but his arms and legs and skill as a swimmer. Every kid he knew thought it would be cool.
Every kid, as it turned out, was wrong.
The water invaded his mouth and nose, turning him into a sputtering wreck. He thought he would be able to swim, at least in a rudimentary fashion, but his feet resisted his mental direction. Instead of kicking behind him they kept stabbing down, feeling for ground that was too far to reach. Still, they kept trying, and kept dragging Ken below the surface as they did.
His hands swept back and forth. And like his feet they seemed more intent on finding something to hold than they were on swimming.
He was going to drown unless he could get himself under control.
Ken struggled. His clothes, already saturated when he jumped in, dragged him down. His shoes had somehow converted to lead-soled diving boots.
A Bruce Lee quote came to him: “Be formless… shapeless, like water.” The old master had been talking
about fighting forms, and Ken wondered how he would have felt being dunked in an Idaho ditch.
He went under. Came up for a moment. Went under again. Felt himself tiring.
And slammed into something. Hard.
69
Ken hit it with his right side, a bruising impact that probably would have sent him into a tailspin of agony if it hadn’t been just one more of a thousand pains he’d already suffered.
As it was, he barely felt it. More so because when he hit the obstruction the water surged and pushed him upward. At first he wondered what was happening, then realized: the gate! He had hit the concrete box of the flow control gate that they had earlier crossed. A lateral move that had taken long minutes on land had spanned short seconds in the canal’s torrent.
Ken reached the top of the gate, pulling himself over. He gasped for air. Oxygen mixed with the water in his lungs and the moisture in the air, but it was sweet all the same.
He looked forward. Couldn’t see much, but he thought he spotted a few forms floating down the canal. Maybe something slinking next to it. Seemed like they were a long way away. He couldn’t tell if they were moving under their own locomotion. If Maggie or the others hadn’t been watching, they could have hit the concrete headfirst and been knocked out. Drowned seconds later.
Then he realized if that had happened they likely wouldn’t have gone over the gate. He would have found them here, floating on this side.
He looked behind him. No sign of Aaron. Or none that he could see. But he doubted the cowboy had just given up.
Ken got his palms on the slick top of the gate. He pulled himself up, sliding across on his belly, feeling the concrete bite him through his shirt. He was still wearing the shirt Dorcas had given him days ago, that ridiculous, long-sleeved thing that said, “I went to BOISE and all I got was this STUPID SHIRT (and a raging case of the CLAP)” across the front. The sleeves were in tatters. He couldn’t tell if the words remained. He suddenly hoped the concrete was scratching them off; suddenly hoped that none of his old students would catch him wearing it.
The Colony: Shift (The Colony, Vol. 5) Page 12
