The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  She slowed to navigate through the wreck at the checkpoint. Flames tore through the last remaining Humvee, putting off intense heat and billowing smoke. Its charred black skeleton was clearly visible inside, along with other dark shapes I made myself look away from. I tried to tell myself that the people inside were Path, that they would have killed us if they could have, but it didn’t seem to matter. My stomach roiled.

  I turned to Nat to tell her we had to go but her eyes were blank and locked on the burning vehicle.

  “Nat?”

  I touched her shoulder and she snapped out of it with a gasp. Nat steered delicately around the wreck and then stepped hard on the gas, hurtling us down the highway as fast as she could.

  No one said a word for the rest of the trip.

  15

  Nat pulled Wade’s truck into the parking lot of a sprawling building and slid out of the cab. I was frozen in my seat, astonished, staring at the banner by the front doors.

  WAYLON HIGH SCHOOL. HOME OF THE WYOMING WILDCATS.

  “We did it, I whispered into Bear’s ear, my hand clutching his back. “We’re out.”

  “Cal!” Nat called. “Let’s move it!”

  Bear leapt out of the seat, and I followed him. Nat grunted as she grabbed the truck’s back gate. Her arm was slick with blood from her shoulder to her elbow. I went to help, but she pushed my hand away. The gate fell and the three boys jumped out. One of them switched on a big flashlight and drew it around the truck’s bed.

  I expected weapons, but what I saw was box after box marked as carrying medical supplies: bandages, surgical instruments, drugs, antibiotics — an entire hospital’s worth crammed into one truck.

  Nat straightened up and squared her shoulders. “We did it, guys,” she announced. “Everything we needed. Good job. Now let’s get this stuff unloaded and to the people who need it.”

  “Then we sit and wait for the party they’re going to throw us,” Hector said. “Right, Nat?”

  Nat smiled, but it seemed forced. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Bet my dad’ll give us the keys to the city.”

  They loaded their arms with boxes and began ferrying them across the parking lot and up to the school’s front doors. I winced as Nat dropped a box into my arms and pushed me into the school. Bear stayed close through a maze of locker-lined halls until we came to a crowded gymnasium.

  The air in the gym was dense with the stench of blood and decay. The floor was packed with rows of steel-frame cots. Medics in stained smocks tried to minister to the men, women, and children who filled them, but there were too many wounded. Some of the inhabitants were still, but others were thrashing and moaning. Every few moments, there was a scream that burrowed into my spine. Bear whimpered and pressed his body into my leg.

  “Drone strike,” Carlos said quietly beside me. “Right in the middle of town. Path mostly ignores us out here, but every now and then, they like to make sure we know they’re still around.”

  “Enough chatter, ’Los,” Nat said. “Let’s get this stuff where it needs to be.”

  “You got it, boss.” Carlos and the others fell to it immediately, ducking out of the gym and jogging toward the truck. Nat set her boxes down and waved over one of the medics.

  “Truck’s out in the lot,” she said. “Send everyone you can spare.”

  “But your arm,” the medic said. “You’re—”

  “I’m fine,” Nat said. “Go.”

  The medic withdrew, pointing everyone in sight out the door and into the parking lot. The few who stayed behind tore into the boxes as they were delivered and then sprinted across the room, delivering what was inside to the patients.

  When I turned back, Nat was gone, mixed in with the rest of the citizens of Waylon. If there was a time for me to disappear, it was probably right then. The Path would almost certainly retaliate for her strike, and I needed to be long gone before that happened.

  I scanned the room for Nat, wanting to at least thank her for helping to get us out. I found her sitting beside a cot a couple rows away, leaning over someone’s body. I took a step forward but stopped when I saw that she was crying.

  Bear kept going, though, dodging through the rows of cots and piling into Nat’s side. He thrust his head underneath her arm and I expected her to push him away, but she wrapped her arms around him instead.

  The boy in the cot next to Nat was unconscious. A partially bandaged burn, red and crusted black, ran from his chest to his forehead on his right side. From the way the blankets fell over him, I could tell he was missing his right leg and most of his right arm.

  Nat kept her arm around Bear as she talked quietly to the boy on the cot. She ran her fingertips along his good arm and then set her hand in his, bending his limp fingers around it so it was like a seed curled up in soil. When a medic appeared with an IV stand, Nat jerked her hand away. She wiped her tears and moved into the aisle as he ran a line into the boy’s arm.

  Bear looked back at me, and I nodded him ahead. He followed Nat across the gym and through one of the back doors.

  I looked to the door as medics and civilians raced in and out. Sitting on a table nearby, there was a stack of sterile dressings and a suture kit. I grabbed them and crossed the gym toward the back door.

  I found Nat in an empty science lab, leaning against a large marble-topped workstation, Bear on his side in front of her. When I pushed the door open, Nat whipped around, sniffing and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Sorry,” I said, my voice overloud in the little room. “I can get Bear and go if you—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s fine. I mean, if you don’t mind. He can stay.”

  I let the door close behind me and stepped inside, squinting at the harshness of the fluorescent lights. Nat looked different now that the aura of command that surrounded her at the checkpoint had evaporated. She seemed younger. Smaller too. She sat quietly examining one of Bear’s paws, pushing him away if he tried to protest.

  “His pads are cracked,” she said. “And he’s skinny.”

  “We’ve come a long way, I guess.”

  Nat placed a hand over his still-too-prominent ribs. “Gotta look after your troops.”

  “He’s fine,” I said, but when Bear crossed the room to meet me, I couldn’t help but notice he was limping. She was right. He was clearly favoring one of his front paws, wincing when the other hit the tile.

  Just hang in there, I thought. We’re almost home.

  I swung the pack off my shoulder and cracked open one of Wade’s cans of tuna. I set it down in front of Bear and he devoured it.

  “I thought you might need this,” I said, holding up the bandages. “For your arm.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Gotta look after yourself too.”

  Nat glared at me but yanked up her blood-soaked sleeve. I cleaned the wound with antiseptic and a length of the bandage, then opened the suture kit and selected a threaded needle.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  “You need stitches.”

  “I’ll wait for a medic.”

  “They’re busy,” I said, and hooked the needle into her arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry.” I slipped the needle in and out of her skin, remembering our survival instructor’s admonitions to keep the stitches small and tight.

  “Your friends in the Path teach you that?”

  “They’re not my friends.” I said. “Your friends in the Fed teach you how to assault a supply truck?”

  “My mom did.”

  I looked up to see if she was joking.

  “Oh, right,” Nat said. “You Path guys prefer your women in veils instead of body armor.”

  “I’m not Path,” I said.

  “Maybe, but you sure looked surprised when you figured out it was me who was in charge tonight.”

  There was a teasing glint in Nat’s eye.

  “Well… maybe a little,” I said. “This is going to sting.”<
br />
  I finished the suture, then pulled to make sure the edges of the wound were tight together. Nat hissed as I did it.

  “Sorry.”

  I tied off and unrolled the bandages. Bear left his dinner to lie down between us, presenting his belly to be rubbed. Nat obliged.

  “I learned everything from my mom,” she said as I began to wrap her arm. “She was in the Army since I was little. Became a ranger as soon as they started taking women. Most of my friends were playing with dolls while I was learning how to strip an AR-15.”

  “She out east now?”

  Nat shook her head. “Her unit got hit by a Path drone a few months ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I—”

  “Forget it,” Nat said. “Everybody’s got a story, right?”

  Neither of us spoke as I finished wrapping her arm. The building was silent, just the distant sound of bodies moving in other rooms, and the rise and fall of Nat’s breath. I had the awkward realization that I hadn’t been alone in a room with a girl since I was nine years old.

  I quickly packed up the suture kit, then looked over my shoulder at one of the science lab’s windows. It was still dark, but it couldn’t be much longer until sunup. I thought about all those vehicles sitting outside and all the miles me and Bear still had to go.

  “I thought I’d feel good about it.”

  I turned back. Nat’s hand had gone still on Bear’s side and she was staring at the tile floor.

  “I mean, they were Path,” she said. “Right? And we needed the medicine. But when I think about it, when I see that guy lying there I—” Nat cut herself off, overcome. “He didn’t look much older than Steve.”

  “That’s your friend?” I asked. “The one who got hurt in the strike?”

  She nodded. “He hasn’t been conscious much since the attack. And when he is, he’s in so much pain that it’s like…” Nat faltered, searching for the right words. “It’s like he’s right there, alive, in front of me, but at the same time…”

  “It’s not him.”

  Nat’s pale brown eyes met mine. She nodded, then looked away. Her jaw clenched as she gritted her teeth, determined not to cry in front of me.

  “I think all you can do is try to push it away,” I said. “Move on.”

  “Move on to what?” Nat demanded.

  “I just—”

  “I don’t want to move on,” she said. “I want to find the part of me that makes killing them hard and rip it out.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yeah,” she said, eyes blazing, “I do.”

  “Natalie!”

  The door to the science lab banged open and a man in a brown police uniform came storming in. Before either of us could say a word, he grabbed me by the arm and slammed me into the lip of the table.

  “Hey! What are you—”

  Bear started barking as the man yanked my elbows behind me. Steel cuffs closed on my arms, just above where my cast ended.

  “What are you doing?” Nat said. “Dad, answer me!”

  “The guys told me he’s Path, Nat. He’s going to jail.”

  “He’s a runner,” Nat said. “And he helped us.”

  “Helped you do something you had no business doing!” Nat’s father pulled me off the table and moved me between him and his daughter, his big hands clamped on my arms.

  “You and your friends could have been killed.”

  “But we weren’t!”

  “And it’s a miracle! If your mom was here—”

  “She’d be proud of me!”

  Nat stood with her chin thrust out, her face reddening with anger.

  “We will talk about this in the morning,” her father said. “For now I want you home. And if you so much as set a foot outside the front door, one foot, I swear you will end up in a cell beside his. Now go.”

  “He doesn’t belong in jail,” Nat insisted.

  “And how do you know that, Natalie? How do you know that some kid you just met isn’t a spy? How do you know the Path isn’t going to come running when they hear their post was overrun? You think they’re going to let that go?”

  Nat looked away from her father and stared at the floor.

  “Yeah, you might have helped save some of these people, but what if what you did helps put a hundred more in their position? Or a thousand? You think Steve would have wanted you to make that trade?”

  “You don’t know what he’d want,” Nat hissed.

  “Pretty sure he’d want you to think a minute before you nearly get yourself killed,” he said. “Now get home.”

  Nat’s father yanked at my arm, leading me and Bear through the gym and outside, where he pushed me up against a police cruiser. Wade’s truck sat two rows down. If I had just taken Bear and walked out when I had the chance….

  “Gonna tranq that dog if you can’t keep him calm.”

  “Bear,” I said, pulling out of the man’s grip and kneeling beside him. “Take it easy, pal. It’s fine. We’ll get this worked out and then we’ll be on our way. Okay?”

  Bear whimpered and pushed his muzzle into my cheek.

  “I’ve got a kennel back at the station for our dogs,” Nat’s father said, his voice softening somewhat. “We can keep him there until we get you sorted out. He’ll be fed and watered, just like you.”

  A police van pulled up behind us, and another deputy hopped out. He threw open the back door and waited. Bear whined and I leaned into his ear.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” I whispered. “I swear. Now go.”

  Bear didn’t resist when the deputy led him into the van. Once they were away, Nat’s father opened his door and pushed me into the back. He slammed the door and started the engine.

  I looked out the window and saw that Nat and her friends had gathered on the sidewalk. Nat watched, arms crossed angrily over her chest as her father took me away.

  16

  Nat’s father and I wound through the streets of Waylon on the way to the police station. I was in the back, leaning painfully against my side to keep from crushing my bound arms.

  Most every house we passed was dark, with windows and doors boarded up. The cruiser’s headlights caught scarred and crumbling buildings and lots full of ashes. In places, it looked like entire neighborhoods had been flattened.

  “Admiring your people’s handiwork?”

  “They’re not my people,” I said. “Let me talk to the Feds and I’ll explain.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m pretty sure some intelligence folks will be very eager for a chat.”

  He pulled the car around a low brick building and parked next to the van that had taken Bear away. Once he hauled me out, we made our way through three locked doors and into the jail. There, cops milled about amid a near-constant screech of radio traffic. Fluorescent lights pounded down on white tile. My eyes ached from the glare. How did these people stand it?

  Nat’s father led me to a cell and popped off my cuffs before shoving me inside. The steel door slammed shut.

  “This is how it’s going to be,” he said. “You’re Army property now, not ours, so don’t expect to see a lawyer or a judge. My guess is they’ll come pick you up sometime tomorrow for questioning.” He leaned against the cell, crossing his arms. “ ’Course, since they don’t really share any of that intelligence with us, if you have something worthwhile to say right here and now, I’m sure we could work something out.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I said. “I was taken by the Path six years ago and I’m trying to get home. That’s all.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “Someone will bring you supper.”

  He unlocked the outer door and started to open it.

  “She was amazing.”

  Nat’s father stopped at the doorway.

  “The Path didn’t stand a chance against her,” I said. “You should be proud.”

  Nat’s father turned his head slightly toward me, said nothing, then walked out the door. It closed with a
boom, and I was alone.

  I lay on the bunk staring at the bars. The adrenaline charge that had kept me going for hours was gone and I felt weak and empty. I told myself that the Feds would listen, that once I explained the last six years, they’d help get us back home. They had to.

  I closed my eyes and slipped a hand into my pocket. Bear’s collar sat at the bottom, twisted into a ball. I drew it into my fist and held on tight.

  • • •

  A few hours later, there was a buzz and the door that led back to the cells opened, silhouetting two guards and a prisoner.

  “Sorry about this, kid,” one of the guards said.

  “No problem.”

  Nat stepped inside the cell next to mine and flopped down on the cot. I looked at her through the bars, stunned.

  Nat shrugged. “I took one step out of the house.”

  “Your dad threw you in jail?”

  “He’s trying to make a point,” she said. “He’ll let me out tomorrow when he remembers that the Feds haven’t sent us any medical aid in three months.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “The Feds can’t send medicine? They can’t help?”

  “Ha! Help the white trash of Waylon, Wyoming? Please, they have to save their pennies in case some trillionaire’s son gets the sniffles. You want some advice now that you’re back home in the Fed? Get rich. Fast. ’Cause, I tell you, if you’re far enough from the front and have a little money, this whole war is something you see on TV.”

  I could barely process the idea. In the Path, citizens gave the war effort everything they had, and in return they were given everything they needed. I had no love for Nathan Hill, but he’d never abandon his own people like that.

  “Oh, hey. I swiped this for you.”

  Nat handed me something through the bars and I raised it into the light. Black paper and silver foil. I tore it open and the smell of chocolate hit me like a wave. I nearly laughed out loud.

  “I haven’t had one of these in six years.”

  “Seriously? Well, it’s no steak dinner but think of it as a thanks, I guess.”

  I traced my fingers over the logo pressed into the chocolate and then over the bumps on the other side. Almonds. My favorite. I snapped the bar in two and handed half to Nat.