Jackson had switched sides and was riding along with her. He would look back at her from his leather sling and just stare at her with his sad puppy dog eyes. He was tired of traveling as well. In just a few days, she had seen the light flicker in his once ever-cheerful soul.
She hadn’t expected Lito to give up the lead so easily, but all it took was for Yamuna to brush his arm with her hand and give him a look, and he gave in.
So much for the guy who never wanted to fall in love, or whatever it was, again.
She got it; it was a look she had used a few times on Marisha when she wanted something, and it never failed. The thought of losing Marisha hit her hard again, pulling her back into a depression. She pushed it down.
They would find her.
She had to.
“So, how did you meet her?” Colleen said, changing the subject to stop her mind from spiraling further down.
Lito looked back and raised an eye. “At… the museum. You were there silly.”
“I know that. What I mean is, how was is it you two hit it off so well, so freaking fast.”
“She laughed at my dumb jokes,” he smiled.
“Ugh, did you use the same ones you used on me?”
Lito pulled his arm forward like he was about to elbow her, “You laughed once, you know.”
“That was before you tried to feed me to—”
Lito gave her a quick jab
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
“Can we go at least one day without you bringing that up?”
“Probably not; it’s my eternal hold I have over you.”
“What is?” Yamuna said, catching both of them off guard. They must not have been paying attention, and Yamuna had slowed up just enough to see what they were saying.
“Huh?” Lito said, trying to play dumb. He shielded his eyes and looked away.
She had to think fast.
“You are going to have to tell her eventually, you know,” Colleen said. She looked over to Yamuna, and let out a dramatic sigh. “He’s embarrassed,”
Lito’s lips parted, and she felt his body tense up. His breathing labored.
“When I first met him, he,” Colleen said, “Oh, this is great.”
“Colleen, don’t,” He spat through gritted teeth, his face turning white as fresh powdery snow.
“Jackson hated him. I mean, not just hated, he really hated him. He tried to bite him.”
Yamuna put her hand over her mouth and laughed.
“And that’s not it. Jackson has this thing I taught him, where he,” Colleen grabbed the inside of her thigh, gritted her teeth, “Clamps downs,” and shook it like she was being bitten, “but actually a little further inside and he doesn’t let go. Well, that is until I tell him or he gets what he was aiming for. For girls, it’s a little different, but it’s still painful.”
Yamuna eyes went wide, and Colleen could see her swallow hard.
“Are you serious?” The shocked girl said.
“No, no, no… I’m just messing with you. But yeah, I’m serious about him knowing how-to, but not serious about actually using it. Technically, he’s only ever done it to one person., and he deserved it.”
“That’s—That’s good to know.”
Yamuna’s horse slowed down as her eyes went wide
“Colleen, that wasn’t cool,” Lito said.
“I wasn’t aiming for that, but—” She put her hands up in the air as if to say, oh well.
“Can we change the subject?” Lito asked.
“Sure. Okay, and how about you, Yamuna. Why did you decide to hook up with ol’ Lito here?”
“We didn’t hook up, Colleen.”
Yamuna smirked, clearly enjoying the awkward tension Colleen had pulled Lito into, “If you really must know, I wanted to leave there. I thought my place was somewhere else. Something was pulling me to move on. It was some sort of fate that we found each other. I think the real reason was… we both had really similar goals. We see the world is bigger than all of us, and we think it’s worth saving.”
Colleen chewed on her lower lip and gave the girl a faint smile. Her answer felt rehearsed, hollow, and something else she couldn’t put a finger on. Yamuna dug her heels in and got her horse up to a quick canter again.
That next morning, Colleen and Yamuna switched places. She was tired of riding with someone, and she could tell the two had quickly formed a bond she couldn’t describe. It almost reminded her of how quickly she and Marisha had fallen for each other. Drawn together through a crisis, it had worked for her and Marisha, it certainly could for someone else.
With both of them taking turns as lead, they would push ahead, covering over forty miles the following day. It would put them only thirty miles from Vancouver.
Then it would put them at their destination right before nightfall if there were no more problems.
They all pledged to get extra sleep that night if they were to ride their best.
Colleen would see her love tomorrow. There was no doubt in her mind.
Sixty
Marisha
Jude had overdone it the day before. She knew this would happen, but ‘I told you so’ didn’t feel like a constructive solution. Every step he took looked absolutely painful. Like he was walking on fire. His face grimaced with each movement. Marisha couldn’t be too sure, but it felt like they weren’t making any progress, and every time she asked how he was, all she would get was an angry grunt and a flick of his hand.
As the sun was setting, they passed their last-mile marker for the day.
This can’t be right, she thought, this time counting it on her fingers. We’ve done only five miles. At this rate, I won’t even remember who I am by the time we get there.
She knew the inclines hadn’t helped either, making him take more frequent breaks. His eagerness was both a blessing and a curse. Today was feeling like the latter.
After she had finished setting up camp for the night, Marisha turned to ask, “Are you going to make a fire tonight?” But Jude was already asleep. A bit of drool dabbed at the corners of his mouth. He was hunched over and looked like he had passed out while making his pallet for the night, his forehead sweaty and red. She hoped he didn’t have an infection.
That night, Marisha tried the visualization trick that had worked so well the night before. If everything went well, she might have another breakthrough. The hard part would be not getting her hopes up.
She drew in a deep breath, but she saw images before she had finished closing her eyes. The rough edges had been honed, the pictures were less noisy. It had felt like progress. But in the end, she saw the same person—a mirror image of the person she didn’t recognize.
Each subsequent attempt produced images vaguer than the last. A washed-out copy bringing Marisha’s heart to be much less filled than when she had begun.
A feeling deep in the pit of her stomach had made her think this might all be her imagination. Could her brain be drawing what it felt she wanted to see? It was impossible to rule out the Terror’s hand in the deception. Connecting the dots of an image to placate her heart. In the end, she did what everyone in that world did best, pushed it down, and fell asleep because right now she was here for Jude, and she owed him everything she had.
By Marisha’s finger math, they still had eighteen miles to go. A timeframe that typically meant they would be there that same night. Sadly, if yesterday was any sign of progress, that wouldn’t be happening soon. She had already run through the options of carrying Jude, and none of them were feasible. The only solution would be to make him slow down.
“Jude, we have to rest. You aren’t going to get there any faster, pushing through the pain. Right now, you’re a lame animal, and the wolves are going to pick us off if you don’t let me take over.”
He opened his mouth to speak. But she had made her case. She could see he was dejected and yet accepting of the plan. What choice did he have?
Marisha spent the morning preparing for the next two
days. She knew half a day wouldn't heal him, but it would do something for the swelling. It was pointless to remove his boot, but she would have to immobilize his leg before he caused irreparable damage. The ankle looked awful, swollen to nearly twice the other's size, and it smelled. With a few strips of cloth torn from her blanket and some green branches, they made a robust splint. Now they needed something to make sure he put as little weight on it as possible for the rest of the trip.
“Sit your butt down!” she yelled across the camp as he tried to get up to help her search for more materials. “The point was for you to stay off the ankle all morning. Keep that leg elevated so we can travel today.”
“I didn’t have to let you—”
“Stubborn jackass,” she mumbled, just out of audible range.
“I heard that!”
“That was kind of the point. I’m trying to help you out.” She said through her pursed lips, ending it with a genteel smirk. “Thank you is all that’s needed."
He grumbled something under her breath as she walked away, further into the woods. Marisha only found green and brittle branches in fifteen minutes of searching, nothing even close to strong enough to support his weight. As she was about to give up her search, she spotted an old summer cabin. While there was hardly anything worth salvaging, she found an old aluminum bed frame. Lashing several rails together and some black foam pipe insulation, they could construct a respectable crutch for Jude to use. The only challenging part would be convincing him to use it and not complain.
She slowly made her way back to camp, trying to reserve all of her strength. She heard Jude roar at the top of his lungs.
“I can hear you, Quinn! I know you’re there! Come out and fight me like a man.”
Marisha raced through the forest, branches slapping against her face. Each step was a trap for her now weary legs; another twisted ankle was the last thing they needed.
“You just thought I was dead! Come on, punk, I can see your beady little eyes.”
It only took a few more seconds, and she was back at the camp. She doubled over, hands on her thighs, catching her breath as her heart nearly beat out of her chest. Jude was there, his back to her, lunging forward, fighting with someone.
“Give me back my wife!”
Marisha bolted ahead. She could see it all now.
Jude, with one arm pressed against a tree and the other flailing with a knife. Veins bulged in his head as sweat poured down his crimson face. He was stabbing the air with no Quinn in sight.
There was no one.
Jude had the Terror.
Colleen
Not many women still wore hair ties nearly twenty years after the world ended. The rubber bands inside most of them had rotted out from the harsh elements within a few years; this, of course, was true except for ones with latex. Marisha had always used them, thinking of them as the one luxury she couldn’t live without. If they weren’t tied around her hair, they were around her wrists.
Colleen sat there on her horse in the middle of an old suspension bridge, staring at a piece of violet nitrile, ripped but still tied in a bow. There was no doubt in her mind who it had belonged to. The only question in her mind: Why did she no longer have it with her?The mid-afternoon sun had finally warmed them up after a chilly morning, but now a stiff breeze was blowing across the covered bridge, bringing out goose flesh on her skinny arms. She looked all around for any signs of a struggle or anything to give her a clue of what had happened.
She dismounted and walked toward the railing. Her foot slipped, skittering across the cracked blacktop. Reaching down, she felt the bottom of her shoe. Blood.
Her breath caught in her throat as she tried not to gag.
“I…think…she was here.”
Lito, still twenty feet off, dismounted and started towards her.
She knelt to get a closer look. It was everywhere, hidden in the crevices of the asphalt. The pool had dried on top, forming a sticky shell. A blood loss no one could have survived. She felt that morning's breakfast churn in her stomach, the taste of bile tickling her throat. Colleen popped up and crept toward the steel railing, following the trail of blood. Her fingers traced up and along the steel girders, stopping on two new knicks, exposing the unoxidized metal.
“What the—” Lito said, lifting his foot and looking at the bottom of his shoe.
Colleen began to flap her hands back and forth, gasping for air.
“I think she’s been shot—oh my god, she’s dead… she’s dead… she’s dead!”
“How do you—” Lito said as his eyes rested on the trail of blood leading to the ledge of the bridge.
“Do you really think she’s still alive? Look at all that blood!”
“Colleen,” Yamuna said, placing a hand on the back of her neck. “You know they weren’t traveling alone. This could be from any of the group.”
Colleen pulled away and reached down to pick up a spent cartridge.
“Then what do you think about this, huh?” tossing them back on the ground. “Something happened here, and—” her voice unsteady, “I have a bad feeling that we’re too late. I knew I should have…”
Yamuna grabbed Colleen by the shoulders. She tried to pull away again, but the girl hung on, drawing her closer.
“If your Marisha is half as much of a badass as the girl you described in the stories you told me these past few days, then she’s still out there, and we’re going to find her.”
Sixty-One
Marisha
It only took a few minutes to disarm a paranoid Jude, but nearly all afternoon, to calm him down. By the time he had stopped crying, the sun was already setting. Even with a crutch and the rest he had gotten that day, they would have spent more time making a new camp than they would have spent traveling. All she could do was hope he would react like she usually did—recover from all this when the morning came.
As he drifted off to sleep, she could hear him repeating something to himself. She inched closer, trying to hear better.
"Was watching us… I saw…”
She got down on her hands and knees, moving closer still, careful not to disturb him.
“Kisney…he was watching us…I saw his eyes. Kisney…Kisney…coming home.”
Part of Marisha wanted to believe he had really seen something out there, but in his current condition, there was no way to know. He was falling deeper into the darkness.
Lito
Lito dug his heels in, trying to get his horse to catch up to a galloping Colleen. She had been going hard since they had left the sight of the massacre. He kicked his legs again, knowing if he didn’t catch up to her, it might get worse.
He cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled, his voice fading in and out with each thudding hoof, “You know if you don’t slow down… you aren’t going to have a horse to find your girlfriend.”
“I can’t hear you,” she called back, cupping her left ear while maintaining a fierce grip on the reins. “I’m going to need you to catch up.”
He prodded the horse, coaxing him faster. Yamuna dug her fingers into his side, keeping her clawlike grip. The faster they went, the higher she was tossed up and then back down. Her backside would be black and blue tomorrow morning. Eventually, Lito pulled up side by side and called out again.
“You kill that horse, and you walk. So… Slow down!”
Colleen pulled back on her reins and let up. The tension on her face smoothing out.
They settled into a more sensible pace, but one that would ensure they wouldn't make it more than halfway to Vancouver before nightfall.
“We need to get moving again.” She commanded.
“We are moving, right now.”
Colleen said, tugging at the collar of the white t-shirt she had changed into. Her hands moved down to pick at a scar on her arm, digging at it while counting to three.
“You know what I meant. At this pace—”
“Just what were you thinking back there? You’ve been reckless this whole tri
p. I love you, but I’m not dying because of your—”
“We have to find her, Lito.” Her face haunted as doleful, downcast eyes revealed her deepest fears. “Something doesn’t feel right. I just know it. I feel it inside me.”
He looked over to see her pressing the tips of her fingers deep into her sternum, as if trying to reach into her soul.
“You’re stressed, worried… pregnant.”
“Don’t,” her lips pressed together. She pulled her horse alongside him and leaned over to put her finger a foot from his face. “I know quite well what it’s like to be pregnant, and it’s not driving me crazy. I’m never wrong when I get a feeling like this. Never.”
Marisha
“Good morning, you big oaf. Did you sleep well?”
Marisha stoked the coals of the fire, heating the last of the food she had in her pack. They would have to find something later if they were going to maintain their strength. They still needed two more days before they were in Vancouver.
“Depends what you consider sleeping well,” Jude said, rubbing his temples with two fingers on each side. “It’s hard to say. I’m not tired, but… man, it feels like someone used my head for an anvil.”
“That’s what it usually feels like. My mom used to say it felt like a hippo was tapdancing on her head.”
“What usually feels like this?”
Marisha narrowed her eyes, clearing her throat, “The terror. I imagined you wouldn’t remember it. I certainly didn’t the first few times it happened to me. It’s always like some distant dream you had in someone else's head.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have the Terror. I don’t have time for this—”
The Maddening: Book 2 in the Terror Saga Page 33
