“Seems a bit too good to be true, doesn’t it?” he says. I want to kick him. He’s a downer, and he’s become more irritating to be around. Even Ernest seems to have noticed it. I’ve heard them arguing twice since the time Russell came at him. I almost thought I overheard something about the drug storage containers, but I can’t be sure. My paranoid imagination can still flare up, even at heaven’s doorstep. Still, I have visions of him sneaking into that stash when no one’s around and taking a pinch of it. Eating it, getting a touch of the crazed mind. Not the full thing.
He waits for us to say something. Dusty does it first: I’m going to mess with the radio. Then he just stands up and leaves the table. It’s your shift isn’t it? I ask him. I know it is and he does too. In another ten minutes, Ernest will come down and holler if he’s not out on the motorboat, keeping her in a straight line.
The shifts have become worse. They’re much harder, mainly because it’s grown so cold so suddenly—the rain and the wind. And with the wind, it’s also been the swells. The boat has to be manned every time the Resilience moves forward, otherwise it will hold her up in the sea, and knock into her. It could split her hull if we’re not careful, says Ernest.
Clint fidgets at my silent request that he leave. But he continues to stare at me with his pale blue eyes. They’re looking right through me—looking for something that I don’t have for him. I can’t tell what it is. And it’s not time to start making accusations the night before we get to Leadville. I can’t mess things up. He’ll be easier to deal with on land. That’s what I tell myself. And there always has to be something, doesn’t there? I say to myself as he still sits, refusing to take his shift. One person, one thing. Always something. And now it’s this asshole.
Clint looks at Dusty, who’s huddled on the floor by the radio. I hear it clicking on and I hear the static start up. Voley has stayed next to me, and even nudged up against me under the table. The last thing I like doing anymore is turning my back to Clint, but with Voley here, I know I’m okay. Voley’s leg is as good as it was before he was shot, just like my arm. At least we’re both acting that way. And I know he would protect me if anything happened. He would strike Clint dead in a heartbeat. And Voley licks my hand. Like he’s letting me know that what I’m thinking is accurate. Then Clint slides his chair back and sighs. He stands and heads up the stairs.
I remind Dusty how much I really don’t like him. Voley and I crowd around the radio, and Dusty just nods because he knows. I’ve told him a few times already. And Dusty doesn’t like Clint either. But we’re all stuck together. And he’s one of Ernest’s men. And Ernest is the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. I lay my head in his lap, and then start to fall asleep. I think about how even my dreams have started to change. They are no longer the shapeless, dark nightmares of South Dakota and Wyoming and Utah. In my dreams now I see us all growing old together somehow. It’s too much to dwell on while I’m awake. I get too fearful. But in the dreams it’s all so natural and expected. Like it’s the usual way things go. And I want to go there now. The white noise carries me away.
When I wake up, Dusty’s asleep. It’s dark in the cabin because the stove is on low. It’s still hot, but no one else is down here with us. Voley is asleep nearby on one of the bunks, curled tightly into a ball. And I think I’m dreaming when I hear a voice I don’t recognize, but it’s not a dream—it’s coming through the white noise. The radio. It’s someone talking on the radio. At first, I don’t even wake Dusty up, the shock is too much. I listen, my brain on fire for every syllable:
…everything out. If you’ve come this way, we’ve moved south. Again, do not approach the area surrounding Leadville, Colorado. This is Leadville. We’re reporting one last time. The New Fort Saint Vrain Power Plant has exploded. Don’t approach the city limits. The radiation is everywhere. Repeat, radiation everywhere. We’ve moved everything out. If you’ve come this way, we’ve moved…
And then, as magically as the voice has come on, it cuts out, returning into the static from where it came. I wake up Dusty immediately and tell him and we sit patiently in silence waiting for it to come back on. He starts to get impatient, as if I’m making it up, or that I was dreaming. But I insist—I wasn’t dreaming. Someone came on and said not to go to Leadville. I’m in disbelief. We’re at the doorstep. How could someone tell us not to come in?
We have to tell Russell, I say. Listen, Dusty says. He pulls me in close. He just wants to go back to sleep. Lying next to me. Underneath the pattering deck roof above us, in the warmth. Voley opens his eyes and looks over, half concerned and half upset we’ve disrupted his peaceful sleep. But Dusty can’t tell me not to. He doesn’t have the heart because he senses something in my voice, that I must not be lying. He asks me, Are you sure you want to bring it up? You know what it will do to them.
I think about it. Russell will be upset. And he’ll probably believe me, but he won’t care. He’ll just make sure we keep heading in the same direction. I don’t know anything about radiation. I don’t know how dangerous it is. And I haven’t made up my mind if it’s important enough to bring it up. I ask Dusty what he knows.
I only know that it’s one of the main ways people used to get their power. But it was way before I was born. I’ve never seen a power plant in all my life. Only heard about them. But what about radiation? I ask. What’s so important about it? Dusty has no idea. He’s never heard it talked about. He says there was a great dam, a wonder of the world, it was said, somewhere to the south. And they got their power in the old days right from the running water itself. Like magic. But he’s never heard much about radiation. Nothing to make him pause about going to Leadville. Keep it on, I say. You hear me? Keep listening. Wait for it to come back.
Where are you going? he asks. I don’t want to tell him. He already knows anyway. I have to ask Russell about radiation—what it means. I don’t have to tell him why I’m asking. What are you going to say? Dusty calls as I ascend the stairs. I ignore him.
The rain feels like frozen daggers as I come out onto the deck. It’s freezing outside. I half want to stop and peer out into the horizon and look for ice, but it’s too dark, visibility has dropped to near nothing. And the swells that I could barely feel below deck at the center of the ship drop my gut out from under me as I enter the wheelhouse. Despite the cold and the rising wind and seas, Ernest and Russell look positively delighted to see me. By morning we’ll be on the outskirts of the town, Ernest says. Russell nods. He’s holding Ernest’s pipe. They’ve been celebrating. I think I see a bottle of liquor, but Ernest moves so he’s blocking the view. What is it Tanner? asks Russell, immediately losing his smile. He knows me too well.
I ask him what he knows about radiation. They both can tell the question has come out of left field and they want to know why I’m asking. I heard Dusty mention it, I pretend, something about how they used to get power in the old days. They either used big dams, or they used radiation. But he doesn’t know anything more about it. I thought maybe you remembered…
Russell knows I’m lying. Ernest doesn’t, and he starts to tell me a story about a place somewhere in Russia. Across the world. He says a funny word—Pripyat. An old story about a ghost town. It was the radiation that did it. He tells me all these details that don’t make sense. The only word I get is exposure. I know it all too well. And he says roentgen, and it has to do with the invisible exposure. He says you can’t see it. A silent killer. Russell sees the color draining from my face, but Ernest still hasn’t made the connection yet. He’s still buying my story—the random curiosity. Russell hands him his pipe back and tells him he needs to tell me something. Then he ushers me out into the ice rain. It stings and his words cut right through me with it. What the hell’s going on? he says. He can’t play around when we’re this close to Leadville, and I know I have to tell him. I explain everything I heard. The transmission that came through, the warning, not to go to Leadville. The radiation. Russell runs right past me, like I’m a ghos
t all of a sudden, right down the steps to the deck below. I chase after him.
When we enter the dry warmth, Voley and Dusty are sitting by the radio. The batteries are starting to go, Dusty says. They’re the last of them too. I know he’s not lying because he’s looked high and low for more, and even asked Ernest if there might be anymore stored somewhere. Ernest had said he didn’t think so, but that it didn’t matter because they’re no good for anything anyway. There’s nothing coming over the air. But I heard it.
Russell goes right up to the radio and says, Where did it go? Dusty looks up and says he hasn’t heard anything come back on. He’s decided to back me up, I can tell. Did you hear it too? he asks. Dusty looks at me for guidance and that’s enough for Russell. He knows it was only me who heard. We wait in painful static for another five minutes. Finally we hear footsteps coming down the stairs. It’s Ernest. He’s known all along. He was playing it cool. He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows something is wrong. He looks at us, all huddled like addicts over the white noise. Well? he says. Someone going to give me a clue?
I tell him everything I told Russell. Maybe you were dreaming, says Russell. He’s reaching now. Part of him already believes me. I wasn’t, I say. And that’s all there is to it. I can’t say anything else. I have no evidence.
Ernest looks like he’s deep in thought. But then his face lights again. He’s come to some kind of conclusion. Clemmy ran charts on the power grids, all up and down the mountain zone stations. He worked on them for a long time. I bet he knows. Ernest disappears and in another minute he comes back with Clemmy. Clemmy’s already been partially filled in, and he has a straight-faced verdict for us.
No nuclear reactors in Colorado. That’s all he says. And he’s written me off that fast. I like Clemmy, but I want to smack him right now. Because now everyone’s written me off. That fast. There was one, he suddenly goes on. Called…and he stretches out into a long, paused thought. Finally he comes back with a name that sets off a bomb in my head. He says, Fort Saint—and before he finishes, I finish the sentence with him—Vrain.
How’d you know that? Russell says, seriously alarmed for the first time since I told him what I heard. I say it’s what they said on the radio. Impossible, Clemmy chimes in. It was decommissioned a long time ago. Taken apart, all the nuclear components cut apart and buried. Trust me, I used to work—and I can’t stand it so I cut him off. I just heard it. And it’s clear. It’s the word that he forgot. Was it New Fort Saint Vrain? I ask. Clemmy looks confused. Was new a part of the name of the power plant? I repeat. No, says Clemmy. Just Fort Saint Vrain. Everything stops dead.
How much spent fuel did they bury? asks Ernest. Clemmy thinks again, and then he says he has no idea. But could they have built a new plant? Russell asks, and he’s turned to Clemmy now too for answers. I don’t see how, not with the rain, he says. But I just checked the power grids on a computer. I don’t know anything about how the plants work. What’s going on? Someone going to tell me what the broadcast really said? Clemmy asks. Ernest repeats my story for him. Impossible, he says. I heard it, I say. And then, the radio crackles loudly. My spirit jumps because the white noise has disappeared, and it’s a clear line of static now, ready for a voice to come in. Only it doesn’t. Nothing comes. And instead, the radio dies completely. No more juice.
What if it was before the rain? I ask Russell. And only he gets what I mean at first. We’ve always thought of Leadville as Ernest’s Rainless Land. The place above the waterline where it doesn’t rain. No, Russell finally says. Can’t be. And I think about the legend, and if it had been true, and the city had existed for a time without rain, they might have built another power plant. Something with this radiation in it. Something that will kill us all. We have to turn back, I say. Russell looks away from me. It’s too much to ask. He loves me, and he knows I’m serious, but with every ounce of his being he’s denying me. He lets Ernest handle it for him. Even if that’s what you heard, it has to have come from someone, right? It can’t mean that we really can’t go there, Ernest says.
“It was a fucking loop,” I say. I tell them the voice repeated itself. I’m sure it did. I heard it start over. It was no one. A phantom. A recording, nothing more. Leftover. They’ve moved south, I say again, for the third time. That’s what the recording said. No one says anything. They don’t know what to say. It’s the most absurd possibility. The only exposure we have to deal with is the wet cold rain and the mindless face eaters. Anything beyond that is unfathomable to anyone. And not at the doorstep of salvation. Russell says all that in his glare, and he means to tell me he can’t let it go. Not when we’ve come this far. But he comes up with a compromise.
Then I’ll go in first. On the boat. Everyone else will stay back, Russell says. Ernest doesn’t reply. He’s seriously considering it. Clemmy speaks up. I’ll go with you, he says. I feel only partly relieved, because I don’t want it to be Russell. Send Clint, send Clemmy, send Ernest. Not you Russell. But I don’t say it. I’m frozen inside. Tortured. It’s like Russell said used to happen with the Gods. When you weren’t in their favor. They toyed with you. Like a game of chess. Bring you so close, every time, just to screw you in the end.
Dusty’s mom and dad pop into my head. I see their faces briefly. They didn’t deserve to die. And so this is the punishment. The invisible killer. Something we can’t fight back against, and we can’t even be smart enough to avoid. We’re magnetized to Leadville, its pull is way too strong. A giant swell rocks the boat, like we’ve fallen into a trough at a bad angle. Shit, Ernest says. He rushes back up to the wheelhouse. In a moment the ship is gliding up and down like normal again, but I hear a new sound. It’s the whining of the wind that cuts through the ropes above the deck.
There’s a gale coming in, says Clemmy. He follows after Ernest. Finally, alone with Russell, I work on him.
You can’t go, let him go, I say. I plead with him. And he doesn’t say no. He knows he can’t say no that fast. But he’s decided the answer is no. That was an old recording, Tanner. Maybe a hoax to keep the face eaters away. Trust me. We’ll check it out, and then we’ll be back. And we’ll all go in together. But something in me can’t let him. I grab him. Russell they said not to go there! Let’s go south! But the old trick, the one that saved Dusty’s life, doesn’t work twice. It’s me or Leadville in my mind, but to him, I’m just panicking. A scared little girl he’s known all her life. Everything’s going to be okay, I won’t let anything happen to you, he says. Then he looks at Dusty and says, Get that thing working again, you hear me? Whatever you have to do. Dusty nods, even though he knows it’s impossible without new batteries. He starts fiddling with it again anyway. Clint starts walking down the stairs.
“What’s going on?” he asks. The room falls silent again and Clint says that it’s Russell’s turn at the motor boat. And to be careful because the waves are coming in fast and hard now. Russell nods and leaves, checking me one more time, hoping I’ve calmed down. But I haven’t. It’s not me who needs protection. It’s him. He’s the one going in there. I begin a frantic search for more batteries.
Chapter 15
In my dreams I see the snow. It’s falling like angel tears, carpeting everything in white. I haven’t seen white in forever. I’ve only seen brown and sad and gray. But this place is pure. At peace.
But there’s something dark in the distance, eating up the sky. It’s spreading too fast. Like it’s going to consume everything. And now I notice that the sky, what’s being eaten, is actually skin. The dark storm rides high. And then everything in the sky becomes skin. It turns pale, pale white skin, matching the snow beneath it.
Part of me registers that I’ve never seen snow before. How am I seeing it now? And part of me realizes I’m asleep on the bunk, rocking with waves inside the hull of the Resilience. Then the sky transforms—it’s no longer white, and it’s no longer black. It’s red. Bubbling skin. And then the snow disappears. It’s transformed too. The sky is ripping open. Bursting. Grea
t big sores rupturing. And the rain is back. Endless rain. But it’s red. Falling from the punctured flesh. There is no healing for this sky, something in my gut tells me. No antibiotics. No cure. Just endless invisible death. It falls on me until I can’t take it anymore—it’s too hot. Hotter than anything I’ve ever known. It suffocates me, the blood. And then there’s nothing left. The white comes back. The sky is blue. I’ve never seen a blue sky, I think. The blue is gorgeous.
When I finally nudge myself out of my nightmare, there’s a face above me. Blue. But it’s not the sky of my dreams. It’s the blue of someone’s eyes. Clint. He sees that I’m awake and he presses his hand over his mouth, signaling that I should be quiet. I kick my knee up, trying to pound it into his gut, but his body’s positioned so that his weight has me pinned down. I can’t move. Then his hand moves from his own mouth to cover mine because he sees I’m going to scream. I scream into his hand, but no sound escapes. And his other hand starts to work its way down my sweater. He’s pulling it up. And then my pants. I can think of nothing but the face eaters. The madness. I bite like I’m one of them. I taste his blood but he doesn’t even flinch. He’s got my pants down and he’s finding my underwear. I can’t stop him.
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