by Justin Clay
We are all flushed-face and breathing heavily, our hearts racing for those first few moments in the cellar. I am doubled over, clutching my sides, my chest hurting — my lungs on fire. Time passes, at least a good ten minutes before their incessant groaning vanishes, and the thuds of their footsteps disappear. I swallow, leaning my head against the cold basement wall, my throat still dry and sweat I notice has entrenched around my forehead and drenched my shirt, remnants of it beading down my face and pooling in the hollow of my shoulders.
I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, exhausted. I am still shaking; the awful remembrance of June fallen with that Infected girl scraping her hands against the ground to get to her, her eyes bloodshot and manic, still terrifies me. I shut the image out of me as quickly as I can, willing it to stay far away.
“That was close, huh,” I say, exasperated.
“Too close,” Eli mutters seriously.
I feel guilt fill my veins like lead. We’re responsible for this…Ending up in this stupid cellar…I just know we are. June had fallen and I had stood their frozen like an absolute idiot.
I see Lena’s face outlined in the dusky dimness, the balmy heat of the stagnant air pressing against me, and she doesn’t look as upset as Eli. She’s staring at him intently, though, and then her sight glazes over us. She breathes in and exhales. The tenseness is almost overbearing at this point.
“Are you kids all right?” she asks, genuinely concerned.
“Yeah, for the most part,” I tell her.
June doesn’t say anything all. She doesn’t even nod. She just sits there, her eyes remaining, as they have been all this time: widened, her frail face lost in the darkness here, petrified. I could only imagine…
“We should get going,” Lena suggests. “While they are gone.”
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Eli is the first to open the cellar’s door to see if it is indeed clear. He tells us to come on, and he pulls both June and me up through to the outside. The trees along the hillside grow tall and far above us, covering the sky, and the late afternoon sunlight shimmers through, a golden orange.
Lena seems more approachable, so I ask her where we are going now, and she looks ahead, as if thinking. “To the mountains,” she replies.
And that’s where we go.
Our last few moments in the outskirts of Boulder did not last very long before we found the Flagstaff Mountain trail Eli had been searching for, although he seemed to know exactly where it was. I wonder if they have been here before, and if there might be a greater reason of why they want to go through the mountains, rather than just for protection.
Who am I kidding? There has to be a greater reason. They have a strange urgency about them; I just don’t know how to place. Like they’ve got to get where they are going and as fast as possible…Maybe it’s really important to their mission. Who knows? I surely don’t since they have told nothing of it. And something tells me they aren’t exactly headed to where the Carriers are — well, not right away.
A few outcroppings of thin hardwoods and patches of rocks with overgrown grass ford the Flagstaff Mountain trail’s entrance. We press on in a pleasant quiet, mostly.
The warm air here is without the morbid sounds of the Frothers thankfully; we seem to have lost the moving herd, for now at least.
Singing birds and the occasional chirp of crickets or other wildlife here only breaks our silence. We see a couple squirrels dart from the undergrowth and scamper across the soil and pebbled pathway into the shadows, a distance back. The grassland we tread through is mainly green but there are more than a few patches, which are a deadened brown, dried up by the sun’s relentless heat. There is no humidity in the air, and what saliva you have in your mouth begins to disappear almost immediately. A good cold drink of water would be wonderful, but we have to ration…Never know when it could be your last…for a while.
Just before we get to a steep incline of a massive foothill, Eli stops, looking up a tree. I wonder, and then see why he’s stopped. My mouth falls agape as I realize what’s hanging by an aged rope from one of the higher branches is a deteriorating skeleton. Lena tells June to look away; she says she’s seen worse, but obeys. Was it suicide? Who knows in this day and age…
“Come on, let’s go,” Eli says.
They begin to press forward to scale the foothill to reach the mountains. But I hang back for a moment as something has caught my attention. And it isn’t the wooden sign with the words “No Hope” painted in red right beneath the skeleton. It’s something else. Beside the sign is a small, crinkled and folded piece of paper.
Could it be a letter? I grab it and instantly pocket it. Lena is calling for me to catch up; they’re already a few feet ahead. Great.
“Coming!” I shout, and run to meet them, where they are waiting before the steep incline ahead.
As I catch up, I look at my sister. I worry about her. Will she be able to keep up? Will she be able to climb such precarious heights? God, I hope so. I’d try to carry her as much as I could…But that didn’t work out so well back there…
So much could go wrong in the mountains; I just know, since so much already has. We’ve managed this far, even by the skin of our teeth — but at some point, sooner or later that will end. I can feel it. What then?
4
THE HIGHLANDS
THE FIRST NIGHT IN the highlands leading to the mountains is spent within a small cave, where outside the rock-strewn pathway curves around, overlooking a deep valley. I keep my eyes on the large form of Eli stretched out across from me, looking onto his back. Lena had started a fire a couple hours ago when darkness fell, slowly at first until that was all there was. Darkness.
The night sky with its distant stars is covered here and there by moving ominous clouds. The firelight jumps, dances in this darkness, the shadows flickering against the undulating, bony walls of the cave. The flames are dying; there isn’t much left. The fire is encircled with stones; it’s not going anywhere, remaining within the dry sticks and leaves we had foraged prior.
I’m still wondering about Eli and Lena. Mostly Eli. He’s much more difficult to unravel than Lena; she is a more open book type, like myself. She’s so much more approachable. I could tell that, like us, she has been through quite a lot.
But Eli just is…Eli. Tortured, distant like the stars out there and cold too. He shows little emotion. I don’t even see him afraid. How can someone not be afraid in a time like this? With so much chaos happening around us? How can anyone be that stable?
It isn’t possible. Maybe, on the surface he’s like a statue, foreign to any emotion, but on the inside he is screaming.
And where are they going? Truly going? Why such an urge to traverse the mountains? What will they gain?
Are they really searching for the same place as us? Or are they just lying and planning to dump us off at the first chance?
Somewhere in all of my mind traveling, rain begins to trickle first in a light shower, and then it becomes dangerous: a torrent whipped by howling winds that sound too much like hungry wolves. I thought I had glimpsed some on our way to this cave earlier… I try not to think about it. It was just my imagination. Me being paranoid again. Way to go, Rian.
I watch as June stirs in her restful sleep; the noisy deluge is rousing her. But she still sleeps. I don’t think a tornado would wake her.
Eli, however, remains as motionless as a log. Is he even asleep? I can’t tell...
Lena is awake though. She’s the one on guard, sitting with crossed legs at the mouth of the cave, her crossbow over her lap as she takes in rainstorm silently. She and Eli take turns watching out. And this has been her couple of hours.
I’ve been lying on my side, since we’ve all decided to sleep, and now it aches. I need to get up, stretch…Do something. I’m going stir-crazy just lying here, limply, contemplating. So I get up; I walk carefully to where Lena is and sit beside her. The ground is hard and rough against my hands as I place them behi
nd me, propping myself up. Lena doesn’t look my way or acknowledge my presence, at first.
A few moments pass of us just sitting there, staring out quietly, watching the downpour within the pitch darkness and hearing the thunderous sounds of the rain against the mountains beyond.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Lena says, still looking forward.
“Can’t,” I reply, not looking at her either.
“Well, you should try…Tomorrow’s going to be an even longer day without rest…We have a lot of walking to do.”
“Where are we going, Lena? Beyond the mountains?” This time I am looking at her, and I hope she turns to look at me, but I’m disappointed.
“Forward,” she tells me vaguely.
What’s that supposed to mean? “Forward?”
“Yes, forward…Further away from all of this madness, hopefully.”
“Can you be honest with me, Lena?”
She finally turns her head, her gaze uncertain. “I am being honest with you, Rian.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Perhaps,” she says at last, and I sigh. “You want to know where Eli and I are really going? Is that it? Why we ended up in Colorado when we did?”
I nod adamantly. She frowns.
“It’s a long story.”
“Then shorten it,” I suggest.
Lena laughs. “Fine,” she gives in. “You win. Eli and I have known each other for quite some time…He has saved my life more than I have saved his…It’s actually how we met; but that’s a story for another time…Eli and I…Well, we ended up in a quarantined zone near New Mexico; we had high hopes for it…But it wasn’t anything like we expected…
“The military rule there was harsh and unforgiving…Slaughter in the streets…There were riots…Terrible, violent riots over empty promises of more rations…Finally, it grew too unstable to remain there safely…We’d rather risk it out there with the Infected; anywhere was better than staying there…So we chanced it, and made our escape one night…We weren’t alone…We lost someone that night.”
She pauses, and I can see she is biting her lip. Lena’s holding back tears. Something very emotional happened that night. But what? Whoever it was must have been killed.
“We were forced to leave his body behind,” Lena finally confesses. She sighs heavily. “Don’t ever say anything to Eli about this, you promise me? Promise me.”
I nod slowly, fearful as I watch Lena’s eyes, both haunting and glaring. “I promise…Did Eli love him?”
“Yes,” she reveals. And for some reason I think that hard to believe. Eli loving someone? Actually showing emotion? “He was Eli’s nephew; he was killed…Brutally killed…He was only thirteen, and was his only family left…Much like how June is to you…Could you imagine that?”
I shake my head. I don’t ever want to imagine that. I couldn’t live in a world without June.
“What was his name?” I ask.
“Remy,” she says, frowning. “Remy was his name. Anyway…Eli knows this person who might be able to help us.”
“Help you what?”
“Help us get something we need.”
“What is that?”
“You’ll find out,” she says, smiling. “Nothing bad…Just necessary for where we need to go.”
“Are you still going to where the Carriers are?”
“We hadn’t planned on it,” she admits. “Eli believes it to be a trap…I’m not so sure…But for your sake, we’ll go there afterward.”
“After you get what you need for this guy?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “Well, woman actually.”
“Oh…Where does she live? What’s her name?”
“You’re just full of questions aren’t you?” Lena says, and somehow I feel guilty, although I shouldn’t. She didn’t say it unkindly. “Cari lives in Montana, supposedly.”
“So you’ve never been there?”
“No. Neither has Eli,” Lena says.
“Then how does he know he’s going the right way?”
“I don’t know,” she says flatly. “I just trust him to make the right decisions.”
“Do you think he always does?”
“Sometimes — most times, actually — Rian, the right decisions aren’t the easiest…Eli has done some things I know he regrets — we all have, haven’t we? Well anyway, he’s survived because of that. People have died because of decisions he was forced to make…That much I know…
“We have killed,” she continues, pained, “not because we wanted but we had to in order to survive…No one would ever consider that the right decision, but now…With all of this happening, sometimes there is no other option…I’m sure you know what I’m talking about…Not many are left without blood on their hands…Everyone now carries regrets they wish they didn’t.”
My eyes widen as I remember, and I nod, swallowing. “Yes,” I whisper, pained. “I know.” I too am still plagued with such nightmares...
“But still, I trust Eli — He hasn’t led me astray yet…He truly cares about people he loves…Like how I know you care about your sister…I can see it in the way you look at her, like at any moment she would break, shatter into a million pieces, and you wouldn’t hesitate for one moment to put them all back together again…Not because you have to…But because it’s what you feel is the right thing to do…That’s how much Eli loved Remy. You survive for the people you love, and most times, Rian, that involves making decisions that, because of the consequences you have to endure, may not seem right but are, in order to do just that — survive.”
“I understand.”
“You should get back to sleep,” she says. “We will be fine…Do not worry about that…We’ve made this far.”
Lena reaches out and clasps my hand with hers, comforting me with a grin. My heart palpitations disappear and I feel okay again. I tell her good night, and leave to take my position beside June again. I continue to watch the last of the flames shine against my sister’s golden hair, until my vision blurs, and all I see is warm colors before I’m lulled into slumber.
Early morning brings gray overcast skies and a biting breeze as we further our trek toward the mountains. The highlands are becoming more formidable; the precipices above are growing higher and looking more and more like broken black glass, their highest points still covered in snow because of how frigid the altitude is there. I’ve noticed that the highlands we’ve traveled through have begun to take on a steady incline without bowing, and the trees here grow at soaring heights, heights you’d get lost in if you stared up long enough. The foliage here is truly enjoying the last rays of summer, with leaves ranging from a deep to a golden green, if ever so subtly. Autumn will be coming in a couple months. And with it, a seizing coldness that I do not want to endure once more…
June is doing surprisingly well climbing so far. She doesn’t talk much, but I can see her attempting to enjoy herself by admiring the wildflowers we cross, or playing in the shadows of the hardwoods, when we sit for a few minutes. There isn’t much time for rest; we seem to always be on the move. Lena points out that Flagstaff Mountain, the majestic upheaval of forested rock ahead, is now about a half of a mile northwest of where we are. It rises before us like a beacon, beckoning us to where it is.
The city of Boulder is becoming clearer and clearer to view down below us. The sight is absolutely stunning, taking all of the reddish brown, yellow, and green colors of the city, the grassland, and the mountainous terrain around us. The cliffs surrounding us rise steeply, bearing the same reddish brown rocks upon their sides. At one point we cross the main road spiraling up the mountain; Eli says it’s not safe to follow the road, brings too much unwanted attention. Too easy to meet people you don’t want to meet.
Afternoon light glimmers through the treetops, casts long shadows of the life here living amongst the highlands. We’re traveling a trodden pathway up toward the mountain; when we reach a wending river, Eli stops holding out a hand and raises his shotgun.
We watch him curiously. He has his eyes narrowed. It is silent here except for the babbling brook. He holds a finger over his lips when I attempt to ask why we stopped. Lena’s head turns in the direction Eli has taken great interest in, apparently understanding. She also raises her weapon, aiming an arrow into the underbrush.
Then I hear it: a crackling shuffle; a snap of a twig —man, Eli’s ears are sharp. Sweat drenches my forehead, and my breaths are shallow. I arm myself too, drawing an arrow. Painstaking minutes later, I fear the worst…Is it someone with a gun? People with guns? What? Eli and Lena keep their aim steady until something flies out.
It’s a couple of frightened rabbits.
I want to laugh. Lena catches one with her bow; the other escapes. She’s smiling as she walks over to pick up the dead furry animal. Lee remains grim-faced. What’s his problem? He keeps his eyes skyward, and as if on cue the sounds of a flock of birds emerges overhead, and for a moment the sunlight is blotted out by the rapid movement of their flapping black wings. They’re just birds flying. What’s the big deal?
