Higher Ground

by Becky Black

  “It’s not gone yet. You never know, I might be wrong about the whole island flooding.”

  “You don’t believe that for a minute. Anyway, if you’re wrong, you’ll leave. I don’t want you to leave, Zach. I’m not done with you yet.” He couldn’t imagine a time when he would be done with Zach. He grinned. “You’ve grown on me, you big-nosed smart aleck.”

  “You could—” Zach began, but his words were drowned when all the dogs began to bark and howl. The group came to a halt, fear spreading through it rapidly.

  “Oh shit,” Adam groaned. “Here we go again.”

  “Get down,” Dr. Howie yelled. “Everyone on the ground.” The minor injuries he’d dealt with so far had mostly been to people knocked off their feet by shaking ground. People dropped, grabbing kids and dogs, holding them close to keep them from running off in a panic. Zach and Adam hit the dirt and held on to each other, as they had done in the tent the night before.

  The roar came, rising from the earth, as if something in the rock awoke and cried out in rage. The tremor started. The ground rippled. It seemed slight at first, but it grew in intensity. Loose rock bounced down the slope. It went on. And on. It didn’t stop after only a few seconds as it had before.

  Zach groaned. A sound of total despair. He pulled Adam closer, buried his face against Adam’s neck, and spoke in a muffled voice.

  “Adam, I love you.”

  Adam pulled back, startled, looking down at Zach in his arms. The trembling, roaring ground became almost distant, almost meaningless. He saw the sincerity in Zach’s eyes. The words were true. Torn from him by the fear of death but no less sincere for that. More so.

  “Zach…”

  The roar lessened, quieted; the shaking eased.

  “Zach.” Adam leaned closer, lowering his voice—not that anyone was remotely interested in anything they had to say right then, other things on their minds. “Zach, I love you too.”

  “You don’t have to say it just because I did.”

  “I’m not.” He’d fallen in love with him at the mass meeting, he realized. Seeing him on stage, taking this awful burden onto his shoulders, stepping into a role that didn’t come naturally to him, purely because it had to be done. Adam fell in love with him then; he couldn’t deny it.

  “Zach! Adam!” Korrie’s voice, high and panicky. She ran to them, slipping on loose rock. “Look. The vents! The vents!” She thrust her binoculars into Zach’s hands as he and Adam scrambled to their feet.

  Zach raised the glasses. Adam did the same with his, joined by many other people, looking out at the basin with binoculars or just their eyes. The ground trembled again, and some people dropped to lie down, but Zach and Adam didn’t lie down. Most of the people watching the basin didn’t lie down. They were transfixed with horror.

  Water blasted from the mouths of vents as it would from a high-pressure hose, spraying and surging across the basin from the base of the mountains. It kept coming. How far had the island sunk in the quakes? If the coast side of a vent was completely submerged, the water would come through it like an express train, and it wouldn’t stop.

  “No,” Zach whispered, the word barely audible over the rumbling coming from the ground, caused by the force of the water flooding through the channels in the base of Shusara mountain. Adam directed his binoculars down to where they’d left their vehicles, to see water pouring across the land. The vehicles must have been washed away like so many toys.

  But he didn’t care about those. The water was covering the road, and more water came from every direction. The vehicles on the road, the rest of the residents of Arius, racing desperately for the hills, didn’t have a chance. He thanked God he couldn’t see it well as the water overwhelmed the road, sweeping away everything in its path.

  The picture blurred as tears obscured his vision. When he heard the sound of a choked sob, he turned from the horrible sight and looked at Zach. Tears streaked his paper-white face.

  “Why couldn’t I have been wrong?” He tossed down the binoculars and dropped to the ground, his head in his hands. Korrie knelt beside him, her arms around him. She spoke softly in a soothing, motherly tone, and stroked his hair gently. Adam wanted to take her place, offering Zach comfort, but as the trembling ground stilled and the rumbling stopped, he turned to see people looking at him. Looking first at Zach, but then at him. Zach couldn’t address them with some inspirational words this time, so they looked to Adam instead. What the hell did he say? People were crying for their dead friends. What could anyone say to them?

  “Adam,” Simon said. “The distress call just stopped.”

  Oh hell, we didn’t need to hear that. Of course it had stopped. Arius had been wiped off the face of the planet. People didn’t need to be reminded. He glanced at Zach again, who had tears running freely down his face, staring out over the basin as it rapidly turned into a sea. Not seeing it, though, his gaze elsewhere. A thousand-yard stare which told Adam Zach was not the man in charge right now.

  Which meant Adam was.

  “We’ve got at least another hour of daylight,” he said. “Let’s use it.”

  People stared at him as if he’d suggested they leave their children behind. Even Zach looked up at him with some shock.

  “Perhaps this is a good place to stop for the night,” Simon said quietly. But Adam shook his head.

  “That water isn’t going to stop. The interior flooding is only going to accelerate the sinking. We have to keep moving.” They couldn’t waste a second. All the abstract theory had been swept away like the hundreds of people down there. “Get ready to go.”

  He went to Zach and helped him to his feet. “You walk with Ann. I’ll go up front for a while. Let me be the bad guy, okay?”

  Zach almost smiled. He raised a hand to touch Adam’s face. “You could never be a bad guy. I’ll come and join you as soon as I pull myself together.”

  Adam left him and strode through the crowd with a show of confidence he didn’t feel inside. When he reached the front, he turned back around to face the group. They were ready. They were still crying. The dogs were still whimpering. But the adults had their packs on, the small children scooped up or riding in backpacks.

  They were ready, and Adam felt proud of them. He had no stirring words. None would be adequate. Instead, he led by example, turning to face the uphill slope and climbing. Their tribe followed him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They walked for nearly an hour and a half, braving the twilight to make it a little bit farther. Only once it became dark enough to be dangerous did Adam agree to stop. Many people didn’t erect their tents. Some didn’t even eat dinner. They unrolled their bedrolls and sleeping bags and bivouacked right there. A few gathered around the campfire and ate and talked quietly.

  When Adam joined them by the fire, sitting down beside Zach, he found Korrie talking about the early days of the colony and her fellow founders, many of whom had died today. A renegade she might have been, but those people had been her friends. She’d been the firmest believer in Zach’s prediction, but to see it come true so horribly must have shaken even her.

  “The day we finished the atmosphere processing, that’s the day old Davey Johnson showed what he was made of. All the readings in the world meant nothing until we actually saw someone outside the dome, breathing the air. And David said as head of mission, he had to be the one.”

  “Did anyone argue?” Visha asked, a smile on her face at the wry question.

  “Not for long, no.” Korrie managed a smile too. “So he put on a pressure suit and went outside. Everyone—I mean every single one of us—stood watching him through a window by the airlock. He took some readings, triple-checked them, and then took his helmet off. I’ve never known five seconds to last so long in my life. That’s how long the old atmosphere would have taken to kill him before we processed it. And after five seconds was up…”

  “I bet you all went nuts,” Adam said.

  “Yep. So did David. Dancing, jumping
up and down. He even did a cartwheel.”

  Adam boggled at the thought, remembering the frail old man he’d last seen only a few days ago. “A cartwheel? In a pressure suit? Is that even possible?”

  “He managed it. He was a lot more limber in those days than he is—”

  She stopped, and her face turned stricken. She didn’t correct the is to the past tense. Zach abruptly stood up and walked away without a word.

  “Better go with him,” Dr. Howie said to Adam. He didn’t need the suggestion, already getting to his feet. He hurried after Zach as the darkness swallowed him up.

  “Zach, wait up.”

  “Leave me alone,” Zach’s choked voice came back.

  “Never going to happen.” Zach sped up, but Adam matched his pace and caught up to him. “At least let’s use a flashlight before we break our necks.” He took one from his pocket and turned it on.

  “Adam, please, I need to be alone for a while.”

  “No, you need to cry or scream or whatever you need to do. You don’t need to be alone for that. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  Zach didn’t answer, kept on walking until the voices from the camp faded, and even the campfire was only a distant glow. At last he stopped and dropped to the ground, facedown. Adam lay close beside him, feeling the convulsions of Zach’s body as the sobbing took hold. He didn’t shush him; he didn’t try to stop him. He only stroked his hair and back in a soothing rhythm to let him know he wasn’t alone.

  He shed tears too and didn’t wipe them away, let them fall onto the tough, hardy grass they lay on. After a few minutes, Zach stilled. A moment after that, he turned into Adam’s arms.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You’re right. I didn’t need to be alone. It’s better you’re here.”

  “I’ll always be here for you.”

  “What I said earlier… What we both said…”

  “It stands. It’s the truth. But we’ll talk about it when this is over.”

  “Okay.” He snuggled against Adam and rested a hand on his chest, over his heart. Did he want to feel the beat of Adam’s heart to remind him death was still a long way behind them? They could stay ahead of it. They would stay ahead of it.

  “I didn’t realize it would hurt so much,” Zach said. “I knew the people who didn’t come with us would die, and I’d feel awful about it, but I didn’t know it would be this bad.”

  “When it’s real it’s very different from what you imagine it will be.”

  “The thing is, I don’t usually feel…connected to people, I suppose you’d call it. I don’t know if it’s because I was rather sheltered as a child, or because I’m smarter than most people, which sometimes gives me a feeling I’m not one of them. But these people—all of them, the ones with us, Barbara’s group, the people who died today—I almost feel like they’re family. I just don’t know if I can stand to lose anyone else and stay sane. If Barbara’s group doesn’t move fast enough—”

  “They’ll move fast enough. The water is already rising. That’s gonna be a hell of an incentive.”

  “And if it rises faster than they can climb?”

  Adam almost said they made their choice. But he restrained himself. Zach wouldn’t respond to that reasoning. Right now, perhaps there was only one thing he might respond to, to at least temporarily relieve his grief and pain.

  Adam kissed him.

  ZACH PULLED ADAM closer, held him tight, as if the water already lapped at their feet and only by holding on to each other could they be saved from drowning.

  “Adam, oh, Adam,” he gasped, kissing, pulling back to nuzzle Adam’s ear and neck, kissing again.

  “Shh,” Adam said softly. “It’s okay. Relax.”

  It was comfort, Zach knew. Pity even. But more than those things too. Adam loved Zach—he’d said so. Lovers would do anything to ease each other’s pain. Perhaps Adam sought relief from pain too. Zach lay back, pulling Adam down half on top of him.

  They were in the open, no shelter, no privacy, but Zach didn’t hesitate. He’d walked a long way from the camp. His lover had followed him. Nobody would be crass enough to follow them. The darkness hid them well once they turned off the flashlight. Starlight made only enough light to see the outlines of each other’s bodies as they shed their clothes. Zach missed the moon. This planet had none, and he longed for nights with a close, full moon, making it almost as bright as day sometimes. One day, he vowed, he’d take Adam home to Earth, where they could make love by moonlight. If they lived.

  Adam undid Zach’s pants and pulled them down. “No underwear?” he said, sounding surprised.

  “I ran out of clean,” Zach said. Adam chuckled, the sound vibrating against Zach’s skin as Adam kissed his neck, moved on to his chest. Zach didn’t want to talk about underwear. He stroked Adam’s broad shoulders, tried to restrain himself from pushing to speed Adam on downward.

  He’d only laugh and go even slower anyway, determined to tease. Such a tease. It drove Zach to delightfully frustrated begging. Tonight he didn’t tease so much. After what they saw today, even Adam had little sense of humor left. Adam slid Zach’s pants right off, leaving him naked. The grass felt damp under his back, butt, and legs, the air chilly on his skin. But heat pooled in his groin, and his cock felt as if it should glow, it was so hot. Adam stroked it with his familiar slow and gentle rhythm.

  “Nice?” he said.

  “Adam, please. I can’t stand waiting.” His voice rose to a plea, and Adam quickened the pace of his stroking.

  “Nice?” he said again as if Zach hadn’t said anything in between.

  “Nice! Yes, it’s nice!” Nice didn’t begin to cover it. “Please, Adam.” He tried to keep his voice down in case it carried on the night air to the rest of the camp. What would others make of it, he wondered, Zach and Adam having sex despite the horrors of the day? Was it insensitive? Or were other people doing the same in their tents or in the shadows away from camp? Others needing both the oblivion of orgasm and the assurance they were still alive. Celebrating life in the face of death.

  Adam’s lips touched the head of Zach’s cock. A small kiss, almost a greeting before he slid his mouth down over it, the tongue licking the shaft as he went, stimulating the throbbing vein. Zach groaned and pushed his hips at Adam, then made himself lie still. Don’t rush him. Don’t push him. He knows what he’s doing.

  Driving me crazy, that’s what he’s doing.

  He buried both hands in Adam’s hair, stroking, not pulling, trying to stay gentle. Difficult when the fire roared in his belly, and he raced too fast toward completion. Difficult to be gentle and slow. But Adam demanded it. Adam deserved it.

  It began to rain. Tiny drops, like icy pinpricks on his skin, but the rain couldn’t chill Zach. He thought the drops should sizzle and evaporate instantly when they touched him, like they would hitting a hot plate on a stove. The drops sparkled in Adam’s hair like jewels, reflecting starlight.

  “Adam.” He wanted to say “I love you” again. The words he’d said during the quake before the flood. Death had felt so close then. He had to say it before he died. But could he let Adam think that was the only time he’d say it? “Adam, I…” Before he could speak, the words and thoughts were washed away as the orgasm flooded his brain, making him a mindless, writhing beast. A caveman, naked on the grass, all higher thoughts drowned in the rush of climax.

  He became a modern human again after a few moments, to find Adam lying naked in his arms. The darkness had grown more profound, clouds blocking most of the starlight, but Zach didn’t need light to know Adam was aroused and ready for his turn. His hard cock pressed against Zach’s hip; only a slow rhythmic movement suggested his desire.

  Zach turned into his arms. “Inside me,” he said. “If you want to.”

  “If I want… Gosh, no, I’m entirely uninterested in that kind of activity.”

  Zach growled and pushed Adam onto his back. “You talk so much rubbish sometimes.”

  “So I’ve been told. The
stuff’s in my pocket.” Of course, Zach remembered him putting the lube into his jacket pocket right before they left Zach’s apartment. A good hiker is always prepared.

  Finding the lube was easier said than done. First Zach had to find the flashlight and then rummage through their scattered clothes, trying to pick out Adam’s jacket, which turned out to have many pockets to search through. When he found it at last, he was surprised Adam hadn’t fallen asleep while waiting.

  “Keep still,” Zach said and prepared Adam, rubbing lube onto him, making him moan softly and become fully hard again under Zach’s hand after softening a little during the search of the clothes. Zach prepared himself with the lube, took a couple of breaths to relax, and then straddled Adam on his knees, tall over him. Naked, stripped of any marker of civilization, he felt savage. Primitive. Bonded to Adam by grief and danger.

  He moved down slowly, guiding Adam’s cock inside him with his hand, sliding down it. Adam’s groan of pleasure was the most beautiful sound Zach had heard in a long time. His cock, fully recovered from his earlier orgasm, began to perk up again. Adam took hold of it at once and started caressing it. He knew how to use the calloused and roughened areas of skin on his hands to stimulate the most sensitive spots of the whole sensitive organ. Zach gasped, and the words he’d wanted to say came back to his mind.

  He didn’t say them yet. He had all of Adam’s cock inside him. His legs trembled as he took weight on them, not wanting to be too heavy on Adam. He moved, rocking a little back and forth first. Enjoying Adam’s moans and pleas for more. Adam could push up with his hips, since Zach was mostly supporting himself, but it couldn’t last for too long. As his excitement built, Zach’s legs trembled and weakened enough that he rested on Adam on the downward stroke, pinning him. He leaned forward slightly, looking for the right angle, and found it. Adam’s cock brushed his prostate, and Zach cried out.

  “Adam! Oh God, Adam. Never stop.” Adam’s hands ran up his arms to his shoulders, clinging to them. Their limbs made a ring, Zach thought. Eternal. Joined. Never to part.