Rebecca glanced around the surrounding area as they walked forward, as if allowing it to make her argument for her.
“Maybe,” she said. “But until we find anyone else, it’s not going to make any difference.”
The two of them traveled in silence for long minutes, eventually hours. The sky was totally clear and brilliant blue, more vivid than Jack had ever seen it before, back when planes and pollution were a regular part of life.
It was juxtaposed against a landscape that looked as though it had been imported from Mars, or Venus. Fine ash covered the ground, so thickly in some places that it reminded Jack of pictures he’d seen of massive deserts.
This isn’t sand. I would take sand over this dust, this wreckage, any day of the week.
The wind blew softly across the wasteland ahead of them. Rebecca was in front of Jack, and he watched as dust flew through the air like pollen, painting a light coat across the fabric of the tight jeans his mother was wearing.
“Try not to breathe it in,” she said.
“I know.”
It was late in the afternoon when they came across something that didn’t fit the pattern of the old or the new. It appeared on the edge of the horizon, growing as they approached. It was a ridge, one that clearly had not been a part of the continent before the asteroid, and it carried with it a sense of alien newness.
“That wasn't here before,” said Jack. His mother smiled and nodded at him, politely acknowledging the obvious.
“We’ll have to climb up it,” she said. “It doesn’t look like we can go around.”
The ridge went on in either direction for miles, sinking off into the distance. Jack felt vaguely reminded of pictures he’d seen as a kid of the Great Wall of China.
I wonder what it looks like now, after all of this.
As they drew closer, the enormous size of the ridge became abundantly clear. It was unlike anything Jack had seen before. He’d climbed mountains before, some higher than the massive earthen wall he saw before him, but none of them had ever been like this.
The ridge was beyond steep. Jack and his mother stopped a couple hundred feet away from it and spent a minute just staring at it.
It’s almost straight up. How in the world are we going to make it to the top?
“Jack, sweetie…” His mom looked even more concerned than he felt. “I take back what I said before. I think maybe we should try to find a way around.”
Jack scratched his head and tried not to let his frustration show on his face. He walked over to his mom and reached into her back pocket, pulling out the neatly folded map and unintentionally copping a feel of her soft behind at the same time.
“Mom, there’s no easy route around.”
“Honey, the map is of the old landscape! There very well could be a way by, and maybe we just can’t see it from here.”
Jack held the map in front of her, pointing to mountains to the far east and west of where they were.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it probably stretches the distance in between them.” He shook his head. “I have the rope with me, still. I can climb up first, and then pass it down to you and help you up.”
A look of fierce protectiveness came across Rebecca’s face. Jack could tell that she wasn’t going to be convinced, but he felt just as determined and stubborn about pressing forward with their schedule.
Molly will be screwed if she lands down and we’re not there. We won’t be able to find her, and she won’t be able to find us.
He turned away from her and started jogging north, towards the ridge.
“Jack! Listen to me, we have to go around!”
His mom was following after him, but she wasn’t as tall as he was, and her stride wasn’t as long.
“Mom, we can do this,” he called back. “I know that we can. We have to!”
The ridge grew larger and more imposing as he approached. His heart began to beat as though it were taking measurement of it, letting him know just how dangerous a fall from even the halfway point would be. Jack estimated that the it was at least a hundred feet high, with far fewer crags and hand holds than he’d been hoping for.
Here goes nothing…
Jack didn’t wait for his mom to catch up. He took a second to shrug off his backpack and pull the rope out of it, looping it around his shoulders diagonally before stepping forward and committing to the climb.
Jack knew himself, and he knew his mom, and he knew that if he gave her the chance, she could talk him out of it. He almost wanted her to.
The first twenty feet or so went very quickly. The rock was not especially easy to scale, but Jack had been an avid tree climber as a kid.
The rock wall was different mechanically, but it still involved the same process. There was a particularly difficult handhold after about twenty-five feet, and after grabbing it and pulling himself up to a small intermission ledge, he knew he’d passed the point of no return.
“This is insane! You’re going to get yourself killed!” His mother was looking up at him, hands squarely on her hips and her face set in disapproval.
“I know what I’m doing, mom.” The words felt hollow and weak even as Jack spoke them.
The world has ended. I’m going to look like an idiot if I get myself killed doing something like this.
His palms were sweaty, and the bulk of the climb still lay ahead of him. Jack wiped them on the back of his jeans, took a deep breath that was meant to be calming, and set off.
It wasn’t so much that the climb was difficult. The rock was steep, but there was a myriad of places to grip onto, and his sneakers had a surprising amount of traction against the cliff wall.
What really got to Jack was the fact that he knew that death was only a single mistake away. The rules were unlike any other challenge he’d had before in his life, save for running from and surviving the asteroid.
If I fall here, I’ll either die instantly, or die slowly. There’s no hospital, no ambulance, and no way down.
He made the mistake of glancing down at his mom on the ground. The distance between them was enough to make him dizzy. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was at the mercy of stomach wrenching vertigo.
Rebecca looked as though she had arrived at the same conclusions that he had, and said nothing. There was no way for him to get down now, and no hope other than continuing forward and making it to the top.
I can do this. I just need to make my hands stop sweating.
Jack took a couple of quick, energizing breaths and scaled up a dozen feet further. His fingers hooked onto a slab of rock that jutted out a bit further than anything else had, and he pulled himself up to it.
“You can do it!” His mom’s voice sounded distant, and it was. “Just keep going, sweetie! You’re almost there.”
About fifty feet separated Jack from the top of the ridge. The wall shifted textures, becoming much less climbable, much more foreboding sheet of sheer rock. He squinted as he looked for handholds. There were almost none.
I don’t have a choice. She’s counting on me. And Molly is counting on me.
Jack stretched his body to the limit as he began to move further up. His fingers were blistered, even bleeding in some places. After every couple of movements, he would have to pause to wipe his sweaty hands on his jeans.
The stakes were higher than they’d ever been, compounding with the difficult terrain into a risk larger than the one Jack thought he would be taking. He was scared, and the fear behind it was enough the threaten to sabotage his approach and his life.
It’s just one more grab, and then I’m there!
The last handhold was insubstantial, tiny enough for Jack to question whether or not it as really a crack, and not just a line of coloring in the rock. He had been biting his bottom lip for the entire climb, and he dug in deeper and felt blood squirt out as he hung, neutered by indecision, with his finger stamina running low.
I have to do it, for everyone’s sake.
He shot his righ
t hand up like a striking viper, and he felt it strike a crack that was thinner than his fingers. Even as he pressed forward, struggling for the new grip, he felt his other hand giving way.
“No!”
Rebecca’s voice sounded like it was in slow motion. Jack felt his heart flutter, as though he’d just tipped too far back in a chair.
Fuck!
He had slapped his right hand down against the wall as he lost his balance, and as he slipped, his fingers moved a little further over, into the exact spots that he needed.
Jack was hanging by one hand, a thread of hope. His fingers burned and tore, but the new grip was solid enough for him to regain his footing and steady himself.
“I got it!”
The triumph was not just in his voice. Jack was within reaching distance of the top, and confidence surged through him as he used the last of his strength to pull himself to safety.
“Jack! Oh my god, Jack!” His mom was shouting up to him, congratulating him with her musical voice. “You did it!”
I did it… I made it in one piece.
Jack was lying flat on the ground and staring up at the sun. For the first time since the world had ended, he felt as though he was back in control.
CHAPTER 13
Jack helped his mom follow up after him after using the rope to lift the packs up. He took his time as he guided her as much as possible, pointing out handholds that he’d used as she went. The sun was dropping quickly on the horizon when she finally reached the top of the ridge, and the two of them took a minute to rest.
“That was insane,” said Rebecca. “I hope we don’t run into anything else like this on the way.”
Jack turned around to take in the view from the high ground. Far off to the southwest, a large expanse of cracks spider-webbed across the ground, with glowing orange lava flowing through some of them.
“Mom… We’re going to have to be careful.”
She followed his gaze and brought her hand to her mouth as she looked off into the distance.
“My god,” she said. “It’s almost like the glaciers in the Arctic used to be. Those cracks are enough to swallow people whole.”
And in this case, there would be no climbing back out.
“This isn’t the planet that we remember,” said Jack. “It almost feels wrong to call it Earth anymore.”
Neither of them said anything. After a minute, Rebecca picked one of the backpacks up from the ash and handed it to him.
“We don’t have any time to waste,” she said. “If we don’t get at least to the halfway point tonight, tomorrow is going to be a chore.”
The landscape to the north was much the same as it had been down below the ridge. Jack had been expecting it eventually to slope downwards to bleed off some of the extra height, but it didn’t. The ground was just as flat as it had been outside the shelter, and still covered with thick ash.
One thing that had changed, for the worse, was the wind. The further forward Jack and his mother progressed, the more it began to toss the ash around.
“There aren’t any trees or buildings to keep the gusts in check,” said Rebecca. “We need to hurry. If it gets windy out here, we’ll get caught in a dust storm.”
Her words were scarily prophetic, and within a couple of minutes, the dust was filling the air to the point of making it difficult to see more than a couple dozen feet into the distance. That, combined with the swiftly setting sun, added a sense of urgency to their forward push.
“We should make camp the second we lose the light,” said Jack. “There’s no point in even trying the flashlights we brought. The dust is too thick.”
The wind and ash particles were whirling around him, and he wasn’t sure if his mother had heard him or not. He drew closer in, suddenly afraid that the veil of dust might be enough to separate them.
The sun dropped under the horizon, and the moon appeared behind them, as though they were working separate shifts. Jack had his shirt up over his mouth and found it impossible to take more than one or two confident steps every couple of seconds through the tempest of dust.
“Jack!” yelled Rebecca. She pointed to a large boulder ahead of them, and Jack nodded.
We need to get our camp set up as soon as we can!
The tent was in his bag. He had been hoping that they wouldn’t need it when he’d done the packing, but it represented their only hope of getting any real rest that night. His mom stood behind him as he began spreading out the tarp, doing the best she could to illuminate the process with a flashlight.
The ash let up for about a minute, and it was just enough time for Jack to get everything he needed into place for the next step. He slid the long, flexible, carbon fiber support rods into the tent’s fabric and then managed to secure everything to the ground with heavy metal stakes just as the wind began to pick back up.
“Let’s get inside!” His mom’s voice was barely audible over the environment, but Jack didn’t need to hear her. He picked up his bag and followed after her through the tent’s open screen, zipping it up behind him.
It’s… a little smaller than I thought it would be.
The tent had been designed to sleep two people, but apparently only if they were willing to get very well acquainted with each other. It was long, but very narrow and lacking much headroom, essentially just a weather enclosing for a sleeping bag.
“It’s better than being outside, in the storm,” said Rebecca, as though reading his thoughts. Jack nodded.
“Let’s just hope for clear skies tomorrow night. Can you imagine adding Molly into a tent this size?”
Even though he’d been the one to ask the question, as soon as it had left his mouth, his imagination began whirling.
We’d all be pushed up against each other, rubbing and grinding with every movement.
“It’s just about dinner time, I think,” said Rebecca. “We can’t exactly do anything special for it without a fire, but we need to eat.”
Jack was sick of granola bars, but that was what they had in spades, along with dried fruit and a brick of nutrient dense survival bread. The two of them wet a washcloth slightly and used it to clean off their faces and hands, and then began eating. Jack was much hungrier than he’d realized, and wolfed down his share.
“It’s quieting down outside.” Rebecca looked through the dark and towards the entrance flap of the tent. “If we’re lucky, it will keep clear up in the morning. It’s not going to be much fine hiking through the wasteland if we can’t see where we’re going.”
Jack nodded.
“We have to keep pressing forward, regardless of whether it does or not,” he said. “Molly is going to be waiting for us.”
He couldn’t see his mother’s face clearly, but her concern was evident in her body language. She reached her hand over and tousled his hair.
“Of course, sweetie,” she said softly. “But… you should also keep in mind, this trip is important for more than just that.”
“How so?”
“Even if it is just the two of us…” Rebecca trailed off, and then corrected herself. “The three of us, after we find Molly, we’re going to need somewhere to live.”
“We have the emergency shelter to go back to,” said Jack. “Which has a ton of supplies, running water, electricity, almost everything we could need.”
“Almost everything,” repeated Rebecca. “It doesn’t have a renewable food supply. And the ground around it, what used to be our old town, our old neighborhood, isn’t a place where anything can grow.”
Jack stared at her in the darkness, feeling incredibly glad that she was there with him at that moment.
“I hadn’t really thought about that,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”
“The most important thing for us to do right now is to scout out the area within traveling distance of the emergency shelter. We can eventually go back and take everything useful from it, but it can’t be where we settle down.”
There was something in his mom’
s phrasing, something about where she put her emphasis in her words, that made Jack acutely aware of himself. He stared at her body in the darkness and felt a tension spread through the tent, taking the place of the ash storm in his awareness.
“I’m going to set up our bedrolls,” said Rebecca. “Can you wait outside, so I have room to unroll them?”
“Okay.”
Jack unzipped the tent and stepped through it. The wind was gentle now, only blowing the ash around superficially. He looked up at the sky and felt his eyes focus in on the moon against a crystal clear backdrop of stellar wonders.
They never looked like this back before, back when light pollution made it hard to see anything at all.
“We’re all set,” called his mom. “You can… come back on in, now.”
Jack turned back towards the tent and unzipped it. He stepped inside and stopped as he looked over at the sleeping area his mother had arranged.
“Mom, there’s only one sleeping bag?”
“I connected the two that we had.” Rebecca was already tucked in, and Jack could see her silhouette clearly against the dark as she sat up to answer him.
She’s almost naked. This is an even smaller amount of space than the bed back in the shelter.
“I know it’s weird to talk about, especially now, but we have to keep what Molly said in mind.” His mother’s voice was soft and loving. It felt almost like she was explaining something distasteful, but necessary, like how to use a condom, or why to say no to drugs.
“I… guess you’re right.” Jack felt his cock hardening as he moved closer over to the sleeping bag, stripping down to his boxers as he went. “But it’s just a strange thing to think about doing.”
She’s my mother. Just because it’s in the best interests of humanity doesn’t make it easy for me to cross over that line.
“We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do, sweetie.” Rebecca, as always, was his open and understanding mother. “When you’re more comfortable with the idea, and with what it means, we can come back to it.”
After the Fall: The Complete Collection (Taboo Erotica) Page 9
