The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  “She doesn’t have any hamburger, buddy.”

  Nat lifted him up, setting his forepaws over her shoulder and cradling his bottom with one hand. Bear nuzzled into her neck as she dropped into the chair beside me. Bear adjusted, dropping off her shoulder and curling into her lap. He rooted around in her hand, opening it up and then licking it thoroughly.

  Nat stared out at the shifting trees. She looked exhausted. Her face was drained of color and her eyes were deep and shadowed.

  “Who are these people?” she asked.

  “They’re from California, I think. Their parents sent them here when the war was heating up. Sounds like they even sent a squad of Feds to look after them.”

  “Seriously? Fed soldiers?”

  “That’s who found us on the mountain. I guess they’ve got their own barracks out there somewhere.”

  Nat’s brow furrowed as she turned to look deep into the trees around us.

  “You okay? Sorry, that’s a stupid thing to—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s all right.” A tired smile rose on her lips. “When they brought us here, that Reese guy patted my back and said, ‘Just remember — everything happens for a reason.’”

  “He’s lucky you weren’t armed.”

  A puff of a laugh escaped Nat’s lips. It was welcome, but fleeting. She picked up a plastic lighter from the table and turned it in her fingers.

  “I keep thinking about that parade,” she said. “You know? The one they used to have at Thanksgiving?”

  “Macy’s,” I said. “My parents took us down to see it one year when we were little.”

  “You remember how they had those helium-filled balloons? The big ones?” I nodded. “I feel like one of them. Big and empty and just… floating.”

  Nat sparked the lighter once, illuminating her face in flames, then tossed it onto the table.

  “Me and James had never been away from our parents before,” I said. “So those first few weeks after we were taken, it didn’t even feel real. We kept thinking we’d just wake up one day and everything would be back to normal. Someone would come for us or…” I looked over at her, ashamed. I was saying everything wrong. “I know it’s not the same—”

  “No,” she said. “I know what you mean. Does it get better?”

  I wanted so badly to tell her that it did, that all it took was time and patience and then everything was okay again, but I couldn’t lie to her.

  “You think about it a little less,” I said. “But it’s always there. Eventually you go a day or two without thinking about it, but then you walk by a particular street or hear something familiar…”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re back where you started. And you hate yourself for ever feeling good, because it’s like you’re the one abandoning them.”

  “So what do you do? How do you…”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Nat’s gaze drifted to the table. Bear thrust his nose into the palm of her hand and Nat leaned down until their foreheads touched. She breathed in deep, shaking. I reached out and gently touched her arm.

  “I should go in,” she said. “Get something to eat, then go back to sleep.”

  Nat lowered Bear to the ground and rose from her chair. She was halfway to the door when I stopped her.

  “They have a plane,” I said. “In a couple days they’re taking it and they’re going to New York.”

  Nat stood with her back to me, staring at our reflections in the glass door. Bear went to stand beside her.

  “Nat?”

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I should…”

  “The Army won’t take us. You know that.”

  Nat started to go, but I slid out of my chair and took her wrist. Her pulse beat a dull rhythm against my palm.

  “Cal.”

  “There’s nothing we can do here,” I said. “All we can do is get as far away as possible. Ithaca isn’t — maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s better than being here. I know that.”

  I slid my hand down her wrist and opened her hand so her fingers were draped across my palm.

  “Just come. Okay?”

  We were suspended there for a breathless moment and then Nat leaned in toward me. First there was the warmth of her breath on my cheek and then her lips touched mine, once, gently. Then she pulled back again.

  I waited for something more but she turned away, striding across the porch and to the door. Bear and I both watched as she slipped into the dark house and vanished.

  20

  Diane scooted her chair next to mine when I sat down to breakfast the next morning.

  “So Kate told me all about you being taken by the Path,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “I just think it’s soooo interesting,” she said. “My father says the way Hill co-opted progressive ideas about economic justice and then mixed them with this kind of pastoral religious fundamentalism was an absolute masterstroke. And you know I don’t believe any of that propaganda about the Choice and killing all those people. I mean, I don’t want them to win or anything, but all that talk is just total religious bigotry. I mean, agree with them or don’t, but they’re people, not monsters. Right?”

  Diane waited for a response, but I pretended to be absorbed in digging my fingernail into the rough grain of the tabletop. I was relieved when the rest of the group filed out of their bedrooms and collapsed into chairs around the table.

  Everyone’s eyes were half closed, their hair twisted into sleepy tangles. Christos brought coffee in thick earthenware mugs. Kate was at the end of the table. Her dark hair was bound with a paisley bandanna, her cheeks picking up a reddish glow from her rose pajamas. She glanced up at me over the edge of her mug and then quickly looked away. Diane shook her head and laughed softly. When Kate got up to get more coffee, Diane leaned over to whisper in my ear.

  “Our Kate gets a little squirrelly when she decides she likes someone. Prepare for rough seas, sailor.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Diane patted my arm gently and went back to her drawing. “Don’t worry, love, you’ll figure it out.”

  Alec sauntered in, stretching his arms over his head. A slip of belly hung out under a Superman T-shirt. “Well well well,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Sleep okay?”

  “I did. Thanks.”

  Alec dropped into his place at the head of the table, and Christos pushed a cup of coffee over to him.

  “I had a dream that I stepped out onto the stage at Lincoln Center for my very first performance of Hamlet to find that I was not wearing any pants. It was disturbing for all involved.”

  Alec took a deep drink of the coffee and then looked over my shoulder. His eyes brightened.

  “Well, this must be the reclusive Natalie! Come, join us. Christos, our lady needs coffee! Oh, and Bear’s here too! Bear!”

  Bear dashed across the floor and jumped up onto Alec’s leg. Nat hovered awkwardly in the doorway to the dining room. She had transformed since I saw her the night before. The traces of dirt and blood had been scrubbed clean and her hair was washed. She was dressed in a clean pair of corduroy pants and a black T-shirt. Seeing her filled me with a strange sense of weightlessness. I caught her eye and nodded to an empty seat next to me. Nat quietly folded herself into it.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “Morning,” Kate said, with an odd edge to her voice, looking from Nat to me. Nat gave her an awkward smile and nod. “You look pretty this morning. You get enough rest?”

  “Yes,” Nat said, barely a whisper. “Thanks.”

  “Chris, we got a girl here who needs coffee and food, stat!” Alec shouted.

  “I’m on it!”

  Nat’s hand moved beneath the table to take mine. It sent a tiny electric pulse through me. Our eyes met and she smiled.

  “Breakfast is served!”

  “Huzzah!”

 
As before, the food came out on platters, one after the other, an impossible abundance. It was an assault on the senses — vibrant yellow eggs shot through with gooey cheese and ham. I nearly laughed, seeing the stunned blank of Nat’s face as she watched it all paraded before us. Bear had his paws up on the table, bopping from one person to the next, gracefully accepting offerings of egg and bacon and toast. I dug in, devouring what was before me, and then the plate was refilled.

  I turned to Nat, eager to see how much she was enjoying her first real meal in days, but her plate was still full. The eggs gleamed and the bacon lay in piles. She had gone pale, staring down at it all, fork in hand.

  “Hey,” I said under my breath. “Are you—”

  “So!” Alec announced to the table. “Who’s up for some post-breakfast rock climbing and then maybe a little high-noon fiesta?”

  “Let’s do it,” Christos said, followed by Reese and Diane.

  “Sounds great!”

  “Perfect.”

  “Awesome,” Alec said. “Cal, your gimpy arm means you’re useless to us, but I’m guessing Nat will be more than happy to show us all how it’s really done. Right, Nat?”

  Nat didn’t look up. Didn’t move. Everyone at the table went silent, watching her. I nudged her under the table and she looked up with a start.

  “Ah, there you are!” Alec said, grinning. “I was just asking if—”

  “Where does all of this come from?”

  Nat’s voice was flat and hard.

  “Where does what come from?” Alec chuckled, his easy smile still gleaming.

  “The house. The food. All of this.”

  Alec laughed, wiggling his fingers in front of him like falling rain. “It cascades from the heavens,” he said. “Like manna. We go outside in the morning and there it is.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Nat,” Diane said. “Christos’s and Alec’s daddies are beyond super rich. Christos’s dad is the last big Greek shipping magnate left, and Alec’s dad is an überproducer in Hollywood. You guys know Downtown Cop, right?”

  “You will not take this monkey alive!” Reese called out in a guttural, German-sounding accent.

  “I will now dance the dance of my people!” Christos echoed.

  “Anyway,” Diane continued once the laughter died down, “it’s about the biggest movie series ever, and Alec’s dad produced them.”

  “Along with many other notable—”

  “—independent and Oscar-winning films,” Kate said. “We know, Alec.”

  “You see,” Alec continued, “one of the benefits of being obscenely wealthy is that when you get tired of putting up with your children — who, let’s be honest, are pretty big disappointments — you send them off into the wilderness with an army of Secret Service types.”

  “But if you’re all so safe here,” Nat said, “then why are you going to New York?”

  “Because we’re sick of each other!” Christos hollered from the kitchen.

  “And we’re bored!” Reese said.

  “And,” Kate added brightly, “we’ve been talking about starting a theater company since school. We’re going to specialize in classic Roman comedy and the work that grew out of it. Commedia dell’arte. Molière. Maybe a little Shakespeare in the summer.”

  “But there’s still a draft,” Nat said. “Last I heard, the age was eighteen, so I’m guessing most of you should be eligible.”

  Alec glanced at Christos. “I suppose it was decided that our talents would be better used elsewhere.”

  “By whom?”

  “Nat.” I put my hand on her shoulder, but she batted it away.

  “No, I want to know who decided!”

  “Who decided what?” Alec snapped.

  “That you deserve all of this.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with deserving things,” Christos said.

  “Our parents made choices, hard choices, years ago,” Alec said in the patient lilt of a grade school teacher. “And because of their sacrifices—”

  “Their sacrifices!”

  “Nat,” I said. “Come on, let’s just—”

  “My mother was an Army ranger,” Natalie said, a red fury burning her cheeks. “My dad just—” Nat dug her balled-up fist into the table. “My friends are all dead and you people sit here—”

  “I’m sorry, Nat—”

  “Oh, you’re sorry.”

  “—but that doesn’t have anything to do with us,” Alec said.

  “Your security guards should be in the Army,” Nat said, standing up now. “They should be fighting the Path!”

  “Yes,” Alec said. “Absolutely. Because I’m sure this whole war would be over tomorrow if they were.”

  “Alec,” Kate said.

  “No, Kate.” Alec shot up from the table. “I’m sorry you got dealt a bad card, Nat, but I’m not going to be blamed for it. It’s the way things are and it’s not my fault.”

  “Wait,” Diane said. “It doesn’t have to be like—”

  “No, we gave them a place to stay and food to eat and now she wants to — Look, if you and Kate feel so strongly about this, then you two can stay and join up with the Feds too. I’m not making anyone do anything.”

  Alec turned back to Nat.

  “And I am sorry if my dad’s hard work allowed me to live like you wish you could. Honestly, I weep with guilt. But if you’re telling me that you’d throw it all away if you were me, then you’re either crazy or a liar.”

  Alec and Nat glared at each other across the table. Nat didn’t say another word. She shot her chair away from the table and fled the room. Bear barked and ran after her. I looked back at the others, all of whom were glowering at Nat’s back, except for Kate, who was staring at me.

  “Guys, listen, I’m sorry, she’s just… let me talk to her.”

  I left the table and caught up to Nat at the far edge of the living room. She spun around when I took her shoulder. Her face was seething red and there were tears in her eyes.

  “Nat—”

  “How can you want to go anywhere with these people?”

  I turned to see the group was breaking up and moving toward the living room. I took Nat’s hand and led her down the hall, away from the others.

  “We’re using them for a ride,” I said in a hush. “That’s all.”

  “We don’t need them,” she said. “We can’t be that far from Rapid City. We’ll get ourselves there and find a recruiting station.”

  “I told you. They won’t—”

  “We can talk our way in,” she said. “I know it. And even if we can’t, we can go back to Waylon and hook back up with Carlos and the others and enlist there.”

  I flinched at the sound of a TV snapping on in the living room behind us. Kate and Reese had moved into the room and were being joined by the others. There was a rush of static followed by loud, hurried voices.

  “Cal?”

  Nat’s shoulders were squared, that aura of command pulsating off of her. I felt myself wilt beneath it.

  “Listen, Nat, I…”

  “Hey! Turn this up!”

  I looked up at the edge of panic in Kate’s voice. Christos grabbed the TV remote and keyed the volume higher. A harried-looking man was on the screen. He had his finger to a monitor in his ear and was writing notes furiously.

  “Reports are coming in now,” he said. “Some confirmed, some awaiting confirmation, but we’ll tell you what we know for sure right now. After months of stalemate, major elements of the Army of the Glorious Path are pouring over the border into California.”

  “Oh God,” Nat said. Her hand moved to take mine.

  A map of the country popped up onto the screen with Path states in gold and Fed in blue. The map quickly zeroed in on California, a mass of blue with four sets of golden arrows pointing into it, two coming in from the east and two from the sea.

  “Four A.M. Pacific time saw an end to a brutal series of aerial bombardments that began in major strategic areas in the north and s
outh. Following these assaults, mechanized elements pushed into Southern California from Path-controlled Arizona, while in the north an amphibious assault began on Northern California of a magnitude not seen since D-day in World War Two.

  “U.S. forces were quickly overwhelmed and we understand that by eleven A.M., regional military commanders and the California governor met with Path general Jonathan Moreland, where they officially surrendered their state.”

  On the map behind him, the blue of California switched to Path gold, linking up with other states to completely surround Nevada and Oregon.

  “For more on what this means, we go to our senior military analyst, retired general Stanley—”

  “Come on,” Nat said. “No way the Army says no to us now.”

  She grabbed my hand but I pulled it back. “Nat, wait.”

  “What?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but it was like there was a hand around my throat.

  “Cal, what’s…”

  I met her eyes and saw the realization hit her.

  “You were never going to enlist with us,” she said. “Were you?”

  I swallowed back a cold lump in my throat. “The MPs were coming for me. You said you wouldn’t help me unless I went with you.”

  “I never said that!”

  “Nat, two people signing up right now isn’t going to make any difference. You know that!”

  “And what will make a difference? Running away to New York and joining their little troupe?”

  “Please,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I know what happens to people who try to fight them.”

  Nat’s glare hardened. “So do I.”

  “Wait.” I reached out for Nat as she turned to go, but she jerked away from me.

  “No,” she said, glancing into the living room where Alec and the rest of them milled about the blank TV screen. “Maybe you do belong with them.”

  Nat turned her back on me and strode toward the door. Bear heard her footsteps and scurried out of the living room to follow her. Nat threw open the back door, and a blast of sunlight filled the hall. Bear barked out after her but Nat stalked into the light, a black silhouette and then gone. The door slammed shut behind her.