The plant growth was staggering. It was as if in six years, the country had gone back in time 300 years.
“It’s like by breaking up the concrete, the earthquakes freed Mother Nature,” said Lila in awe as they stood at the top of a ridge, looking down into a green valley. “She was a prisoner who was suddenly given the keys to her freedom, and she’s going to make the most of it.”
However, it didn’t make for easy walking. Sometimes they found a stretch of road that was unbroken enough to allow them comfortable passage. Other times they found worn animal trails. Forests were the easiest walking of all. It was as if nature had come to terms with the forests long before. In fact, other than the occasional earthquake-produced scar in the earth, the forests seemed no different from the way they used to be before the apocalypse. At times they would come across large burned sections that had surrendered at some point in the past to lightning strikes and were now fostering new growth.
Progress continued to be slow, though. They always had to account for the new ravines that blocked their way. Sometimes they were tantalizingly narrow. Ben knew that if they didn’t have Katie and Ralph with them, they could just jump.
One afternoon, they reached the crest of a hill and looked down to see a mile or more of narrow ravines stretched out ahead of them before ending at the edge of a forest. It was just beyond the convergence of numerous broken highways—now almost unseen from the plant growth. Ben looked to the right and the left. As far as the eye could see the ravines continued. He sat down heavily, unstrapping his backpack.
“Now what?” he asked.
Lila looked off to the left, then turned her head all the way to the right, having to compensate for the lack of vision on that side. “Either way we go, it’s going to take us way out of our way. We don’t even know how far the break-up continues. We can see right in front of us where we want to go. Can’t be more than a mile. And some of the ravines are so narrow. It’s like some great cosmic joke to drive us crazy. Unless….” She was looking down to the bottom of the hill her left. “Is that a Home Depot?”
“Looks like it might have been at one point,” replied Ben.
“They sell—well, sold—ladders, right?” Ben nodded, knowing where this was going. “What if we find a solid, light-weight ladder to lay across the narrower cracks? Then we can just crawl across. When we’re over, we can pull it across to use on the next one.”
“You’re a genius,” said Ben. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.” She smacked him on the arm. “And,” he added, “if we find a couple of wooden or plastic shelves to lay along the ladder, it will make crossing a little easier.
Finding the ladders once they reached the store became a challenge. A good portion of the roof had collapsed, and the floor was all broken up, with plants growing high into the air. After a couple of hours of exploring, though, they ran across a twelve-foot aluminum ladder. Shelving was another matter. The best they could find was a thin and narrow four-foot piece of plywood. If nothing else, it would give them an illusion of the stability of a floor while they were climbing across the ladder.
It was late in the day, so they climbed back up the hill to a secluded spot among some rocks they had seen earlier. They set up camp and Ben went hunting with his crossbow while Lila and Katie, with Ralph, searched for vegetables.
Ben returned with two large rabbits. While Lila and Katie hadn’t found any accessible vegetables, they came back with a bagful of late-season berries.
After they had eaten and put Katie to bed for the night, Ben and Lila settled down for what seemed like their first alone time in ages.
For a while, they just laid there listening to the sounds of the animals that had come alive for the night. As they snuggled closer, passion took over and they made love slowly and tenderly. Later, as they were drifting off, Lila rolled slightly to her right and Ben saw her fiddling with her eye patch. She lifted the patch up and rubbed under it, keeping her head turned away.
“That must be so uncomfortable,” Ben said—a familiar refrain.
“It’s not so bad.” Lila’s usual response.
“You should take it off at night. Give yourself a break from it.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Lila, don’t you think I know the real reason? I know you’re self-conscious about it, but there’s no one around but us—and I’m the one who worked on it. Do you think I love you any less because of it? You will always be beautiful to me, with or without the patch. It hurts me that after all we’ve been through together, you would think something like that.”
Lila rolled toward him and slowly lifted the patch off and set it aside.
It wasn’t pretty, but neither was it ugly. The lid—which hadn’t sustained damage—was mostly closed. The damaged eye had filmed over, but very little of it could be seen. But together with the comma-like scar under the eye, Ben could understand her self-consciousness. Her naturally shiny black hair and beautiful features were normally the first things that stood out, but now there was no getting past the eye.
And yet, she was far from ugly because of it. If anything, it made her look like a warrior, a battle-scarred beauty. Ben reached out and gently stroked the eye.
“This eye is part of who we are, what we’ve done, and where we’ve come from. If you want to wear the patch during the day, I understand, but don’t hide it from me at night, okay?”
Lila leaned over and kissed him. “You’re pretty amazing,” she said, then frowned. “It must have been really hard for you for those months I retreated.” Ben started to speak and Lila put her finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything. I know it was. I’m sorry. It’s hard to explain. After all the death I’d seen—including my parents—and all the people I’d killed. … After all the viciousness I saw, the murders of all of those women and children in the camp by the lake, the months thinking you might be dead, it was this, of all things, that almost broke me. I’ll never be able to explain to you—or maybe even to myself—exactly why, but it was. So thank you for staying with me and continuing to love me through it all. I know it’s a cliché, but I came out of it a lot stronger.”
Ben pulled her closer. “I know you did, babe” he mumbled, near sleep. “Maybe we both did.”
Lila heard his soft breathing and kissed him softly on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered.
*****
They were up early the next morning, anxious to win the battle with the ravines.
“Why didn’t we think of this before?” asked Ben, as they trudged down the hill wearing their backpacks and each carrying an end of the ladder. “How many miles did we waste trying to go around a crevasse that would have been accessible by laying a ladder across it?”
“Well, we have it now,” answered Lila. “Hasn’t that been the story of our whole existence for the last seven years? It’s all been trial and error.”
Their first crevasse was on the highway before the ravine field, and was only three feet wide and ten to fifteen feet deep—a good one to try out the ladder on. If something went wrong, they wouldn’t fall into an unending abyss.
They laid the ladder across the crevasse and slid the piece of plywood out to the middle. The board was longer than the crevasse was wide.
“We don’t take any chances,” said Ben. “We always go across on hands and knees.”
“And we tie a rope around Katie, with one of us always holding one end,” added Lila. She knotted a twenty-foot length of rope under Katie’s armpits, making sure it was snug.
“I can do it without the rope, mommy,” objected Katie.
“I have no doubt that you can, sweetheart, but we have to be extra safe.”
Ben was the first to go over. He could jump it, but that wasn’t the purpose of this test. Besides, Katie would never be able to. She needed the ladder as a bridge. He started across, his backpack still on his back. Although the board was on the ladder, it was narrow and Ben had to crawl as much on the ladder rungs as the board. The rungs dug into
his knees.
When he was across, Lila asked him how it had gone.
“Okay,” he answered. “It’s not comfortable, and I’m not sure the board isn't more of a nuisance than a help. Also, having the pack on my back was okay for this one, but if it’s a wider crevasse, it might be more of a problem. It doesn’t balance very well.”
“So maybe we crawl across pushing our packs,” suggested Lila. “Meanwhile, let’s take off the board and see how Katie does with just the ladder.”
Ben liked that suggestion and picked up the board and tossed it to the side. “Okay, Katie, your turn. Don’t look down. This one isn’t very deep, but some of the others will be and I want you to get into the habit of looking straight ahead.”
He needn’t have worried. She clambered across like a monkey, with Lila uselessly holding the rope. Next came Ralph, but the dog balked, reluctant to cross what he sensed was an unsafe situation. Ben realized that a dog would never be able to cross using the rungs of the ladder for support.
“Guess we need the board after all,” he announced, and laid it back on the ladder. Ralph trotted across without a care. Lila followed, running into the same issues as Ben with the backpack.
They entered the large open field that contained the myriad cracks in the earth. The first couple were fairly simple, just a bit wider than the first one—although much deeper. But they knew that some of the crevasses in the middle of the field would present more of a challenge. The experiment of pushing the packs across ahead of them worked well.
An hour later they reached the middle of the field and a slightly wider crevasse. The fact that it took them an hour to go a half a mile pleased them to no end. Without the ladder as a bridge, they would probably still be looking for a place to cross the first crevasse.
This would be a tough one. It was close to ten feet across. Ben looked both ways up and down the ravine. Ten feet was about the best they were going to do. He and Lila laid the ladder across. Not much more than a foot of clearance on either side of the crevasse.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be enough support,” he said. “The ladder might buckle in the middle.”
“It’s pretty sturdy,” said Lila.
“So what you’re saying is that I should give it a try,” he said with a smirk. “You do know that my life insurance isn’t paid up, right?”
“That’s okay,” replied Lila. “There are no banks to cash it in anyway.”
A large pile of rocks sat by the edge of the crevasse. Ben picked up a medium-sized rock and placed it at the end of the ladder.
“This might help to keep it from sliding,” he explained. “A couple more like that might do the trick.”
“I’d feel better if we tied a rope around you, like we do with Katie,” said Lila. “I can wrap it around a rock to secure it in case the ladder gives out.”
“Okay,” answered Ben. “What are we going to do about Ralph? The crevasse is about ten feet wide and the board is only four. He’s not going to walk on the ladder without the board.”
“I have an idea.” Lila pulled down some rocks and leaned the board against them, securing it on both sides with more rocks, but leaving an empty space near one end. “Katie, would you like to use your crossbow and shoot a hole in the board?”
“Sure, mommy.” They loaded her weapon while she prepared to shoot from a prone position. Once they handed her the crossbow, she aimed it like a pro and pulled the trigger. The bolt exploded through the wood, burying itself in the ground a few feet beyond the board.
Lila picked up the board. “Instant hole,” she said. It was ragged and splintered from the force of the blow, but the board was still in one piece. “We can tie a rope to it and pull Ralph across. Great shooting, honey.”
“Thanks, mommy. It was easy.”
Once they determined that both the ladder and Ben were secure, Ben started slowly on his way across, pushing his pack ahead of him. While it didn’t sag, Ben definitely felt more vulnerable on it than he had before.
He was a little more than halfway across when he picked up a familiar sound, one he hadn’t heard in a long time. It was a motor—more than one. He looked off to his right. Traveling along the edge of the ravine were three trucks, and they were headed right for him!
Chapter 9
His mind quickly went back to the stories he had heard of the “evil,” and how they used trucks to pick up innocent people. He made up his mind that there would be no way they would be taken.
Been there, done that, he thought. “Lila,” he called out. “You and Katie hide behind the rocks and don’t let them see you. I’ll see if I can get back to you.” But he knew that wouldn’t happen. It was slow enough to try to push the pack forward on the unstable ladder. Going backwards wouldn’t be any quicker, and it would be dangerous to attempt to turn around. No, he was stuck in the middle.
“Ben,” Lila called back. “There is no way they are getting any of us. My rifle will be trained on them.” Ben could hear her giving instructions to Katie.
Meanwhile, Ben wiggled backwards frantically, pulling his pack. But as the trucks approached, he realized that he was going to have to make his stand right there on the ladder. He looked down. He couldn’t see the bottom. Only blackness. His position couldn’t be any more precarious. He carefully unhooked his rifle from his pack and laid it across the ladder in front of him. Then he pulled out his pistol—the well-worn Sig Sauer 9mm that he had picked up the first day of their journey south so long ago—and wedged it into his pack where he could pull it free at a moment’s notice.
The trucks pulled up. The first was an old Ford pick-up, the second a military-style truck with a canvas back—the type Ben had always seen in war movies. The third was unusual. It seemed to be a small tanker truck, but attached to the top was something that resembled a bridge. It was about twenty feet long and slightly wider than the truck it sat on. It looked to be made of a light metal. Aluminum?
Then it hit him. It was a bridge! It was the same idea as their ladder, only bigger. Big enough and strong enough to hold the trucks as they crossed over the crevasses. It was the only way trucks would be effective in this new churned-up world.
Two men stepped out of each vehicle and gathered around the end of the ladder. Only a couple of them carried rifles, but they all had holsters on their belts.
“What have we here?” asked one of them, staring over at Ben.
They were all wearing green military fatigues, but without any insignias or ranks sewn on, except the one who had spoken. He had blue fatigues and a bar of some sort on his shoulder, signifying his rank. Obviously the one in charge.
“You kind of look stuck. Need some help?”
“No thanks,” answered Ben. “Doing just fine.”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” replied the man in blue. “In fact, this ladder looks pretty rickety. He bent down, grabbed the end, and gave it a little shake. “Definitely unsafe. You really shouldn’t be on it.” The other men were smirking, enjoying the show.
“I’ll be fine, thanks.”
“What are you doing way out here?”
“Just getting some air.” Ben knew where this was going, so he had no reason to be cooperative.
“That your wife and kid behind the rocks?” He held up binoculars. “Yeah, we saw them from a long way off.” He called out, “You can come out now.”
There was no movement from behind the rocks.
“No reason to be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Then what exactly are your intentions?” asked Ben.
“Kinda demanding for someone in such a vulnerable position.”
“Just a question,” said Ben. He had a good grip on his rifle and could bring it up and shoot in a second. His only worry was maintaining his balance on the ladder.
“Well then, I’ll answer your question. We have a town. Getting to be a big one. We think you’d like it there. We’d like to invite you to come live there.”
“Invite?”<
br />
“Yeah, well, you seem to be an intelligent guy. Maybe ‘invite’ is just one way to look at it. The other would be, we’d like to ‘drag you, kicking and screaming.’ That better? You kind of have your choice. For your family’s sake, you might prefer the former.”
“How about neither?”
“Not an option. Listen,” he softened a little—an obvious ploy to give Ben an out. “Life sucks out here. It’s no kind of life for your little girl. Do you remember the world before all this? Do you remember the comfort of electricity? Well, we have it. The whole town is powered by electricity. So it’s really for your own good that you come.”
“I think I can judge that for myself. So now I’ll give you your options. You guys can get into your trucks and drive away, or you can be cut down where you stand.” He lifted his rifle and pointed it at them, setting it on top of his pack for support. “And you’ll be first.”
The man took a slight step back, all the while, trying to maintain an air of superiority.
“You shoot me and you’ll be dead in a second.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, you’ll be dead.”
The two men with rifles raised them simultaneously. As if in slow motion, Ben saw the leader bring up his hands, as if to tell his men not to shoot. Ben heard the loud boom from behind the rocks, and saw one of the men propelled backwards, his rifle flying. A moment later, Ben fired—not at the leader, but at the other rifleman. His shot went high, taking off the top of the man’s head. He crumpled to the ground. Ben’s ears were ringing. His shot had echoed off the walls of the crevasse below him.
The leader threw up his hands, with the remaining three following suit.
“Okay, you made your point,” he said. “We’ll drive away.”
“No you won’t,” said Ben. “You lost that chance. We’ll let you go, but not with your trucks. You’re not going to do to anyone else what you tried to do to us. Undo your holsters and drop them to the ground, then move away from the trucks and lie on your stomachs with your hands on your heads.”
Eden Lost (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 2) Page 6
