by Rayya Deeb
"They got us, Doro. They got us!"
"No way!" I reached for his seatbelt. "Ready?" He painfully nodded.
Click. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
I pushed at his shoulder. "Out the window!"
He groaned in pain and pulled himself through the crunched glass. I trailed after him. He collapsed onto the debris-caked cement. It stuck to his blood and sweat-drenched forehead.
"Y'all okay down there?!" A man called from just up the hill. He kept glancing from us to the drones above us.
"You shouldn't stay here," I yelled back, knowing that just being near us could put an innocent bystander in danger.
"We've flexed for help! They're on the way."
This poor nice guy. He didn't know there was no such thing as help right now, but he was definitely freaked out by the hovering drones.
Dom's eyes squeezed tightly closed, and he winced from the pain, using shallow breaths to control it. I wiped the blood from his face with the sleeve of my newly acquired sweater.
It was only seconds before the rumble of more airborne predators infiltrated our sound-space. Dom and I looked at each other. In that moment, without uttering a sound, we both knew this would either be our end, or a new beginning. Dom hedged his bets. "Doro, please, I need you to look out for my family, get them to Seneca..." He forced himself to his feet.
"Dom, what are you doing?"
He didn't reply, but for a guy who’d just had the daylights knocked out him, he gave off a powerful vibe. He turned and focused on the hard line that separated the road from its neighboring forest of half-naked November trees that ran parallel to the ditch as far as the eye could see. He pointed into the woods, "Go that way, and don't look back."
"Dom, don't you do anything–"
"You got this, Doro!" And with that, he bolted up the hill from the ditch and ran full speed, down the outside shoulder.
"Dom!"
He couldn't hear me as he ran straight into the oncoming enemy cyclone. This guy had a thing about putting his own life in harm's way to protect mine.
During my second week at Seneca I had practiced force field science in the defense-tech lab in mathematics applications session. I knew if I could transfer the energy from Dom's flexer with mine as the control center, I could utilize the drone network to form a shield over us. It was a long shot and time was running out. I ran up the hill and looked down into the oncoming traffic, in the direction of the drone fleet. "Activate virtual keypad," I commanded my flexer. Three, two, one, bam, the iridescent orange keys appeared and floated in the mist-thick, brisk air, two feet in front of my chest. I didn't miss a beat. Punching commands at the speed of light, I was rocking my coding maneuvers inside the drone network faster and harder than I even knew I could.
The deathly rumble closed in, rattling me from my toes to the tip of my head as cars whizzed by on the highway. It became a deep, wicked roar.
Dom must have tapped into some reserve adrenaline supply, because I could see that he made it far, fast. He looked back over his shoulder to me as he ran, and frantically threw his arms out to signal me to go into the woods, but I wasn't bailing on him. No freaking way.
I pumped the air buttons in one seriously hardcore last-ditch effort, commanding the creation of a shield formation over my positional coordinates, and covering one hundred yards to my north, which was how far away Dom was by then.
The vibrations from the imposing threat felt like an earthquake. Pieces of glass popped off the cement like Mexican jumping beans. The Ghost Barrel rotorcraft fleet were in view now, dwarfing the oncoming traffic to toy car status. Six Ghost Barrels– silver and black robot driven vessels with ten-foot wingspans capped in spherical propulsion fans, flew straight towards us from the direction we had just come. The big dogs had been called in. And my coding was coming up short. The drones weren’t responding to my commands.
Dom abruptly stopped in his tracks on the road’s shoulder. He threw his hands over his ears, as his clothing rippled from the sickeningly powerful mechanized winds. Something invisible slammed him to his stomach pinning him to the ground. One Ghost Barrel stayed on him, holding him pinned against the pavement, the rest kept on moving toward me.
Ghost Barrel fleets were known for taking out entire villages in an instant. They were built from weather and crash-proof superalloy materials, armed with the most extreme assault weaponry. They would incinerate us, destine us to air pollution duty, using our remains to quicken the demise of our dear Planet Earth. It could happen to Dom and myself in less than ten seconds. I dropped to my knees. Bowed my head in defeat, knowing I'd done all I could.
Suddenly the swarm of drones spread out into a dome correlation along the shoulder of the highway that extended from over my head to Dom's limp body. It created a whirlpool-like pull on us and all the debris nearby. Their bending light, sound and energy deflected all outside signals and materials. Through the blur of it all, I could see the Ghost Barrel fleet do a 180 in perfect formation, and fly back in the opposite direction. The shield I had created with the drones kept the Ghosts from being able to trace us. Their menacing purr made the hair on my neck stand up, sending shivers through my shoulders. And off they flew, hopefully right back to where they came from, with the message that we meant business, too. Was I excited? Sure. But I knew better than to celebrate prematurely. First things first. I had to get up from my knees and on to my feet. And then figure out what our next move would be.
45
THE GHOST BARRELS' grim aftermath filled my head with sludge– fumes that stank like burnt egg and gas, dirt and debris that were caked in my nostrils and my snarled hair. I realized that I was too exhausted to stand so I lowered myself to a rigid roadside seat. Hugging my arms around my shins I dropped my head to knees. Soon, the sound of my own breath overtook the distant pounding of the Ghost Barrel fleet. I rested my cheek against my thigh, and looked over in Dom's direction. He was still laid out flat, his chest rising and falling like a pneumatic drill. He finally pushed his body up to sit, looked back at me and softly shook his head in disbelief. It was a miracle we’d made it, but it wasn't over yet.
We were beaten up, but not broken down. His intense eyes found their way to mine and held on unwaveringly, re-igniting the conviction we felt and the stamina each of us needed to keep on.
He made his way over to me. "You're bleeding pretty bad," I told him.
Dom wiped his fingers across his temple and looked at his hand, unfazed by the blood. He took off the t-shirt he had on underneath his hoodie, ripped it into a rag, and wrapped it around his head like a warrior.
My flexer was still in sunglass mode, wrapped around my eyes with coordinates pulled up for Claytor Lake in the upper right corner of the black lens. It was the only Seneca entrance point for which I had location data. This would be our one shot. My air keyboard still floated there in front of me. I stared it down, knowing exactly what I needed to do. "I'm locking our position to the drones, and we're outta here." Dom nodded, and let me do my thing without uttering a word.
I concentrated on getting the coordinates right. Within seconds, the hovering drones amped up, and buzzed back in the direction they’d come from. Just like that, nemesis was repurposed into ally. Whoever said mine were idle hands could kiss my butt. My shoulders loosened up. I cracked my neck. My tech work here was done... for now.
"Let's go." Dom nodded toward the southwest. I didn't question him. It was his turn to fuel this unpredictable ride. He started into the woods and I was right there, in mutual stride.
As we trekked along, the only sounds we heard were the crackle of twigs and rocks under our feet, and the faint howl of winter winds blowing in. We came to a stream, maybe four feet across, caked over in a thin layer of misty ice. Dom brightened up when he spotted it, and stomped a hole in the ice with his heel. "Ladies first." And they said chivalry died long ago.
I knelt down palming the cool, clay-colored earth, and lowered my face to the dark blue, rippled reflection in
the freezing water. I could see the pain in the mirror image that stared back at me. I smashed into it with my fists, cupping the water back up to my mouth. I gulped and gulped with my eyes closed. I ran my hand along the ice and then over my face to wipe away some residual grit. Invigorated, I turned back to Dom. He was transfixed, watching me with those tiger-eyes of his. "Sorry, I'm hogging all the water."
"Girl, you can have all the water that you want."
Dom had my back, and I was certain that, by now, he knew I had his. "I'm parched like crazy. You must be, too."
"That’s an understatement."
He moved in next to me. Plunged his face into the water, submerging his head for five, ten, fifteen seconds... at twenty he flung it out, sending a fan of icy water into the frigid air, "Woooooha!" He vigorously rubbed at his head and face that had taken on a stubbled, rugged hotness. It made me feel less like the warrior I’d been all of twenty minutes before, and more like a girl. Just a girl. But I wasn't just a girl. How did he do this to me? I blinked hard to bring my brain back from Mars. He put his hand in the small of my back, making my return from outer-space that much harder. "You all hydrated and ready?"
"You know it. I take it you have a new transportation plan?"
"Do I ever. We'll be off our feet within an hour." He said with confidence.
In just under an hour we had trudged through Shenandoah National Park. The rocky and frosty sapphire terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains was draped in a soft gray-blue sky. It was the middle of the day but the sun wasn't shining. It was muted, as was our mood, in anticipation of a long, frigid winter.
Dom and I were lugging ourselves along as we descended the chilly foothills. Evening began to roll in. I could smell a campfire but couldn't see it, or even another soul. We were starving, cold, sore. My face stung, fingers raw and numb.
And then, just as Dom and I hit our last peak, the sight of a sprawling pasture below us boosted our moods. We rushed down the hill and stood side-by-side, resting our elbows on a white post and rail fence. We watched some horses nibbling on stubbles of yellowed fescue grass poking through the hoarfrost. The one closest to us lifted his head, ears pointed curiously in our direction. "That big guy there, he's a bay." Dom said.
The fairytale-like scene of beauty and eloquence profoundly moved me. "And I thought horses were extinct."
"That's what they tell you in Los Angeles, eh?"
"Not exactly, but we definitely don't have horses."
"Well, you're not in LA anymore, Dorothy. Ready?"
"Ready for what?"
"To hitch our ride." Without missing a beat, Dom hopped the fence and turned back to offer his hand. Without a thought I hurdled the fence by myself. We were on their side of the fence now. Dom and I stared down the horse that seemed the most intrigued by our presence.
"How about we call him Buck?"
"Works for me. I hope Buck doesn't bite."
Dom chuckled as if I were kidding. I was only kind of kidding. "Are you sure about this? I don't know–"
"Man, you really are a city girl. Time to get you a good dose of horse country."
"I think maybe we should find a flighter I can get us into."
"Way too risky. This way we can cut through the backwoods to Anika's farm near Charlottesville." Dom slipped into a slow, confident walk towards Buck. He went right up to him and extended the back of his hand to the horse's nose. This richly dark brown beauty had big black eyes and a warm, strong spirit. I folded. Dom was right. He would be a great addition to our roller-coaster mission.
46
BUCK NEIGHED AND snorted along through the night with Dom and me mounted on his back. I sat in front with Dom's arms loosely wrapped around my waist. I don't know what I had been so worried about; horseback riding was amazing. We didn't even have a saddle, but because Dom had spent a lot of time on farms when he was growing up, bareback riding just seemed to come naturally to him. And he made sure that I was comfortable with it, too.
We were wiped out, delirious really, when we finally made the decision to stop and sleep. By that time Dom estimated that we were about three hours by horseback from Anika's farm. Dom had the kind of nature skills that didn’t exist in LA, and it was a good thing he did. He scaled a young hickory tree with a shaggy bark that made it tricky for him to get traction, but he was determined. He managed to snap a low hanging, long branch and climbed back down with it, which he stripped and bent to hitch Buck to a much skinnier tree. We posted up under the grandest hickory within a stone's throw of Buck and were out cold within minutes.
***
Morning dew woke me with a shiver across my shoulders, my neck hairs stood straight as a mohawk. My back was surprisingly warm, though, and I realized that I was nestled into a full-on spoon with Dom. Somehow we had found each other to cuddle up tight as we’d slept. I didn't want to move, but I knew we had to keep moving. My stomach gurgled and growled, but Dom's was even more insistent, sounding like a monster shouting, "Feed me, dammit!" It helped to know that, once we got to Anika's, we’d be able to eat. Buck was raring to go which he let be known with a dramatic snort. We laughed, but the joy fizzled fast as reality set in. The second I tried to stand I felt an insane pain in my inner thighs. Oh— the trials of a city girl after her first time bareback riding. I clenched my jaw to suck back the excruciating ache and climbed back atop Buck for more. And we were off.
A thunderstorm pushed in shortly after dawn. At first it was magical, intoxicating, even. Deep colossal booms and sheets of water pounded down from a sad, pearly sky. We opened our mouths wide to the downpour. I hadn't seen rain in at least ten months, and even then it had been nothing compared to this. But the novelty got old real quick. We were cold. Heavy clothes chafed against our skin. Jeans felt more like sandpaper than denim. My soaked hair stuck in clumps like chilled noodles to the back of my neck. And good ol' Buck, whose coat was heavily caked with kicked-back mud, needed a bath even worse than we did. The rain magnified his barnyard stench times a million. Buck's hooves stuck in the earth and he had to work overtime with each step to pull them from the suction of gooey mud. The more we wished for the rain to stop, the harder it pelted down. We clung to the image of sipping on some steamy soup under a blanket by a fire. It seemed like such a distant dream during those three hardcore hours.
Based on Dom's flexer calculations, we still had about two hours to go when we heard a far off hiss. It wasn't the drones, I was sure. No, this time my body burned with the premonition of poison. A teeth grinding, acid on flesh nastiness was coming our way, a swarm of some sort of insect. But how could they be out in a storm like this?
"What is that?"
Dom pulled back on Buck's neck and made a clicking sound that told him to stop. We looked behind us. A giant, contorting mass of airborne blackness headed straight in our direction, but even as I blinked the haze of rain from my eyelashes, I couldn't make out what it was.
Dom tensed up, "No, no, no!"
Buck sensed a threat and started frantically tossing his head. I knew this couldn't be good. The auditory toxicity closed in fast.
"Hold on, Doro! Heeya, heeya!" Dom dug his heels into Buck, who neighed in distress and flared his nostrils into the air. Buck darted through the mud with all his might. I held on tight around his neck, a column of solid muscle. I peered over my right shoulder to see exactly what was on our tail. Through the unrelenting, machine-gun spray of rain that blasted me in the face, it became apparent— they were mosquitos, thousands of them.
"Heeya, heeya!" Dom pushed Buck harder and harder, but it was too late, the bloodthirsty army ambushed our heads, swarming in formation like a helmet. Buck flipped out, Dom and I were thrown to the ground and he trampled out of there.
"Run! They're deadly!" Dom screamed.
I swatted as the pathogenic pests formed a thick barrier around my face, up my nose, in my eyes, my ears, landing on my face and hands. I was as disgusted as I was scared. There was nothing I could do– I choked on rain and bugs that f
lew into my throat. "Dom!" I tried to scream out to him but it was muffled. I felt tiny pricks all over me, poison surging into my muscles. A metallic taste formed in my mouth. I lost my balance and, as I heard "waowaowaowao" and saw streaks of black, I succumbed to the virulent attack and dropped like a rag doll.
47
"HELLO, SWEETHEART. YOU are safe."
My vision made a slow dissolve in with fisheye distortion. I felt like I'd been riding a rowboat in the ocean. "Ughhh..." I squinted my eyes to make out a petite woman in her seventies kneeling next to me. She had long hair the color of soap suds and wore an oversized, beige Egyptian shirt with a pair of supremely worn-in jeans. It nauseated me beyond belief to look around, but I had to figure out where I was. Oh god– the room spun. I dry heaved, nothing in me to vomit but foam. The woman held a bucket up to catch it and rubbed my shoulder, "You're okay, you're okay. It's almost passed."
I felt like death. How did this happen? Why couldn’t I see properly and how did I end up on this floor? The last thing I remembered was riding a horse with Dom. I mustered up just enough energy to mutter, "Dom?"
"He's just getting tea in the other room with Josie."
We must have made it to Anika's ranch.
"I'm Anika." Yesss– my blessings were too great to count. Anika was good people, I knew it immediately. Normally it would take me some time to come to such a verdict, but this inherent goodness just emanated from her pores like raw garlic. She held a washcloth to my forehead. "Thank you," I mouthed, with barely any sound.
"Don't speak, Doro. Save your energy."
I rolled from the fetal position onto my back, which felt stiff as a board. I let out an agony-drenched sigh. My vision cleared to see beyond what was directly in front of me. This was the exact scene I had daydreamed about on our ride through the storm. Underneath an exposed beam ceiling, a fire crackled between two picture windows that framed a sweet little secluded farm. I was wedged into a comfy, worn brown corduroy beanbag.
