One of the soldiers saw me watching and said, “Tracking device. We figured we’ll let him wander around for a few years decaying away like he wanted to do to you. It only seems fair.”
I wept as they soldiers gather my gear up and helped me towards the copter. The dead were beginning to take notice of their small party and were moving into the field from all sides. I saw James’s pack lying next to his body which was now beginning to reanimate. I grabbed it and hopped into the copter. I’d like to think it was my scavenger instincts kicking in and grabbing what I know would be useful. But I knew better, James had said he had something to show me. I opened the pack and looked inside.
Carefully wrapped in plastic was a digital video recorder, a large supply of blank tapes, batteries, and a little solar panel charger. And about a hundred tiny tapes, each one neatly labeled with a date, a time, and a name. I knew what these were: films of James’s exploits and I knew if I dug towards the bottom what I’d find. A tape, a little dirtier than the rest, with a name neatly written inside the paper cover: Pix.
Underneath all that I found a small, metal box. I opened it up and saw a bundle of blond hair tied up neatly with a piece of string. The roots of the hair still had bits of flesh and dried blood on it as thought it had been torn from someone’s scalp. Someone like Marti. I put the metal box back in James’ bag unable to consider what it mean.
The copter lifter off and hovered above the field, watching and waiting for James to reanimate. He did a few minutes later and screamed at us. Satisfied, the copter floated over the field, the highway, and burnt out buildings of Albuquerque and brought me, at last, to Sandia.
The Great Wreck Page 37
