by Jon McGoran
“Good night!” I shouted back.
Mrs. Randolph said, “He seems pretty smitten.”
I smiled. “He’s a cutie.”
“He’s a handful,” she said. “Come on. I’ll show you to the guesthouse.”
I nodded and looked over at Andrew, still sitting on the couch. “Good night,” I said.
He smiled. “See you later.”
FIFTY-FIVE
The guesthouse was a small cabin behind the main house, one room with a bed, a side table and a chair, and a tiny bathroom off to the side. It was rustic, with exposed wood and baseboard heaters.
Mrs. Randolph showed me the towels in a cupboard.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” I said. What I really wanted was to be out in the woods with my friends, to give them their food, to take care of Pell’s leg, and to help them stay warm. But I was still touched by her kindness. It didn’t seem to add up: the whole H4H thing and the willingness to welcome a complete stranger.
“Of course, honey,” she said. She looked at me a moment longer, her eyes lingering just for a second, like she was trying to pick up clues about who I was, or like she was sending me a message. There was something sad in her eyes. I wondered if she was thinking about me leaving there in the morning, maybe wishing she could leave with me.
“Sleep well, okay?”
Then she closed the door and I was alone. I paced the room for a moment, running through my options. It didn’t take long. I wanted to run away, to escape and go to my friends. I wanted to communicate with them somehow, but without drawing attention to them, or endangering them. I wanted to let them know what was happening, that I was okay, and that they were right next to H4H central. But the more I tried to think of a way to make that happen, the more confident I was that it wasn’t possible.
I needed to stay where I was until morning, say my gracious good-byes, and hope Rex and Pell and Sly were okay and waiting for me when I got out. And if they weren’t, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
I sat on the bed and took off my boots and my socks. My feet were damp, white, and wrinkled. It felt so good to wiggle my toes in the air. I lay back onto the crisp sheets. They smelled clean, but not freshly washed, like they had just come out of a cedar chest. It was oddly comforting.
I turned off the bedside lamp and in seconds could feel my eyes closing in relief. But the rest of me felt clammy. I knew I’d be a lot happier in the morning if I laid my damp clothes out to dry.
I turned the light on again, then slid off my pants and draped them over the back of the chair. I was lifting my shirt to pull it over my head when there was a tap at the door. Then it opened.
I clutched my shirt back down as Andrew stepped into the cabin.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, for some reason keeping my voice to a terse whisper.
He smiled that charming smile. “Sorry. I just wanted to check and see if you were okay.” He closed the door behind him.
His eyes glinted as he looked me up and down again.
“You need to go,” I said.
“Come on, I just got here.” He stepped closer. “Are you really leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes. Now get out of here.”
“You hanging out with some mixies out there? Is that who all the soup is for?”
I didn’t say anything and he smiled.
“I thought so,” he said. “I saw that mixie pin in your backpack. I guess you’re a bit of a free-thinker, huh?” Another step. Another smile. “You’re also gorgeous, you know that?”
His smell was stronger now, that aftershave or body spray. This close it was overpowering, revolting.
“Back off,” I said, shocked by the fear in my voice. Because what I mostly felt was anger.
“Come on,” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “We could have a lot of fun.”
His body was inches away from mine, and he reached out and touched my hair.
I twisted, just enough to give me some torque. Then I brought up my knee as hard as I could, right between his legs. His face twisted and he let out a breath that came from so deep it smelled of chili dog.
He folded and staggered back into the corner, between the door and the wall, one hand over his crotch, the other hand bracing himself so he didn’t fall. His face was purple and twisted in pain and fury.
I wanted to run, to take my chances outside, but he was leaning against the door. And I wasn’t wearing pants.
“You bitch,” he hissed.
I threw my backpack and jeans over my shoulder and grabbed my boots. I went for the door, but he was blocking my way. He pulled something from his waistband and unfolded it. A large pocketknife.
“Are you serious? Don’t be insane,” I said. “Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in for threatening me?”
He waved the knife in the air, slowly, almost gracefully. “I’m a Randolph,” he said, creeping closer. “We don’t get in trouble.”
I wished I hadn’t taken off my pants and my boots—especially my boots. But boots could be helpful, even if they weren’t on my feet.
“Well, at least one of us is still going to have fun,” he said, waving that blade back and forth, like he was trying to mesmerize me. I waited until the knife was pointed away from me, then I swung my boots as hard as I could at his elbow. I was hoping to hit his funny bone and send the knife clattering across the floor. Instead, I heard a sharp whimpering sound. His mouth was a perfect O, like an old-fashioned porcelain Christmas caroler. His hand still gripped the knife, but the blade was embedded in his other arm. Blood started dripping off his elbow.
I had hurt him, but I needed to get out of there. He was still in front of the door, and he still had a knife. When he came to his senses he was going to be angrier than ever. I drew the boots back and was about to swing them again, flashing back to Dietrich and aiming for his head this time. But then the door burst open with a bang and a spray of splinters. Andrew disappeared behind it.
Rex filled the doorway, his chest heaving and his fists clenched, ready for action. His eyes smoldered as he scanned the room, but his expression became increasingly confused.
I pointed at the door behind him, and he peered around it.
“Oh,” he said, looking down at Andrew, crumpled and unconscious. Then he turned to me again. “You’re okay?” he said as we held each other’s gaze.
I nodded, and he nodded back. Then he looked away. “Finish getting dressed. We need to go.”
I wriggled into my jeans and pulled on my boots, then stuffed my socks into my pocket and grabbed the backpack. “Ready.”
We paused at the door, peeking out each way. A window lit up on the second floor of the main house, then another.
“Which way?” I said.
Rex pointed into the darkness and we took off running, pausing behind a cluster of scraggly bushes. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. “Careful,” I said. “This place is full of H4Hers.”
He nodded, then took my hand and guided me through the shadows. We darted across a street under the dim blue lights, then plunged back into darkness. As we cut through backyards, I heard yelling and some kind of commotion behind us.
The ammonia-sulfur smell grew stronger, and the fire in the sky loomed over us. I could see the tower between two houses, and just beyond it, the waste pit. It was an expanse of absolute black, the toxic by-products left over from liquefying the coal and bringing it to the surface. The houses here were more run-down, the yards mostly packed dirt. We had cut across four blocks when we slipped through a backyard and came to the edge of town. There was a metal swing set just a few feet from the outer fence.
Rex didn’t slow down. Letting go of my hand, he swung himself onto the swing set, wrapped one leg and one arm around the top, and then reached down with the other hand. I grabbed it and he swung me to the top of the outer fence. Then he hung from both arms and swung himself out as well. The fence shook and rattled when he hit it.
We both climbed over and droppe
d into the shadows at the base. A hundred yards to our right, the town gate was opening. Oh sure, I thought, now you open it. Flashing blue-and-red police lights reflected off the trees, and sirens started in the distance.
We exchanged a quick nod, then darted across the street and scrambled into the woods.
Halfway up the hill, we heard rustling in the brush straight ahead and a pair of eyes flashed in the moonlight. Sly’s voice whispered, “It’s okay—it’s us.”
Then I saw Pell, the moonlight playing off the feathers on her head. Even in the darkness, I could see she was hurting.
As the sirens rose in the town below, Sly grinned, showing his teeth. “Whatever you guys did down there, you sure shook them up.”
FIFTY-SIX
At the top of the hill, we turned and looked back toward Pitman. Police vehicles were speeding away from the gate in both directions. A dozen flashlight beams slashed back and forth in the night, crossing the road toward us and then spreading out.
In front of us, the far side of the hill dropped away, a steep, rocky descent to a wide stream below. Moonlight highlighted the undulating hills, extending to the dark horizon. In the distance a bright snake of light cut across the night. The Levline.
If Ryan’s map was accurate and we were reading it right, the star he drew between Carston and Pitman—Haven—was on the other side of the next big hill, just a couple miles away.
Rex pointed to a small bridge, a few planks, really, that crossed the creek where it narrowed.
We started down, sliding and stumbling as fast as we could. Rex was practically carrying Pell, but it was still hard for Sly and me to keep pace with him. Behind us, half a dozen of the flashlight beams speared the misty air like searchlights as our pursuers came up the other side of the hill. They stopped where we’d just been standing, at the top of the hill, then one by one their beams sliced down as they headed down the hill after us.
At the bottom of the hill, we paused at the footbridge to look back at the lights making their way down the hillside. A thick fog was rolling in. To the north and south, more beams crested the hill, joining the jagged line of searchers already angling down the slope after us.
The bridge groaned as we crossed it and the shouts behind us grew louder. The scattered beams began to reassemble as the search party headed for the bridge.
We plunged into the scraggly brush on the other side. Rex checked the compass, then we angled along the creek, toward a different peak to the south.
We were maybe a half a mile away when the first flashlights crossed the bridge behind us. But they kept going straight and headed right up the hill in front of them, instead of coming toward us.
I sighed with relief.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Rex rumbled softly. He put Pell down and she kept up okay. Forty minutes later we reached the top of the next hill. The lights of Pitman were visible behind us, but there was no sign of our pursuers. On the far side of the hill, just a little ways down from the top, there was a massive boulder next to a hollow left by a fallen tree, shielded from sight by its massive roots. We all stopped, an unspoken unanimous agreement that this was where we would camp.
Rex walked a quick circle around us, sniffing the air and checking our surroundings. Sly helped Pell get comfortable as I unpacked my purchases, putting aside the soup, water, and blanket and focusing on the medical supplies.
“Let’s look at that leg,” I said, kneeling in front of Pell.
She shook her head. “Let’s eat first. I think I might starve to death before any infection gets me.”
We sat in a circle, and I passed around the soup, the cookies, and the bottled water. We each pushed the buttons on the bottoms of our soup cans, then shook them to heat them up quicker.
Even after eating that chili dog, I was starving. The others must have been ravenous. No one waited the full two minutes for the cans to heat, and just a few minutes later we were all done, tapping the last drops of soup into our mouths, licking the cookie wrappers.
Rex said he was going to check out our surroundings more thoroughly.
I turned to Pell. “You ready?”
She nodded.
I set up the flashlight and lifted her pant leg. She stiffened and gasped, but didn’t cry out. The wound was nasty, about three inches long and covered with dirt and mud.
“I have numbing spray, but it’s still going to sting. You probably need stitches, but you’re not going to get them tonight.”
Sly held her hand as I got to work with the numbing and cleaning. Luckily, it didn’t look infected.
“So, what happened down there?” she asked, wincing.
I glanced up at her and saw Sly staring down at me as well, waiting. I sighed, embarrassed to talk about it.
“The town was shut down for some kind of fair, so I had to wait until it was over for the store to reopen. By the time it reopened, they had locked the gate. The town was closed for the night.”
“Yeah, we know that part,” Sly said.
I looked up at him, and he shrugged.
“Rex had the binoculars.” He snickered. “He was getting pretty annoyed until we figured out what was going on.”
“Anyway,” I said, “there was this guy, Andrew. His dad is the mayor. His folks insisted I stay at their guesthouse. They were nice enough, I guess, although the whole town was, like, H4H headquarters.”
“What happened?” Pell asked quietly.
I kept my eyes down. “Andrew paid me a visit,” I said. “I think he’s a bit of a hotshot in town, God’s-gift-to-women type. I said no. He didn’t like it. It got nasty.”
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I am,” I said, looking up at them. “Andrew’s not. He pulled a knife. Somehow it ended up stuck in his arm. Then Rex broke in the door and flattened him.”
Sly laughed. “Damn right.”
Pell said, “Jesus, Jimi, that’s really scary.”
I nodded. It was scary.
When I was done, Pell’s face looked rough, but the wound looked much better, slathered with antibiotic cream and wrapped with gauze.
“Thanks,” she said quietly as I pulled her pant leg back down. I smiled at her, and so did Sly. She closed her eyes and her breathing fell into a gentle, steady rhythm. Just like that, she was asleep.
I took out the foil blanket and spread it over her.
Rex returned and pulled me aside. “How’s she doing?”
Sly followed us, listening intently.
I shrugged. “She seems okay, I guess. It’s a nasty cut, and it was filthy. I’m hoping the cream will prevent any infection before it gets started.”
Rex nodded, looking over at her. “Okay. Well, Pell’s got the right idea. We need to rest up. No idea what tomorrow will bring. Sly, can you take the first watch?”
Sly nodded and Rex slapped his shoulder, towering over his small friend. Then Rex turned to me and gestured toward Pell, asleep under the blanket. “It’s going to be a chilly night. We should huddle up to help keep her warm.”
An image flashed through my mind of us lying under the blanket, side by side. My heart jumped, catching me by surprise, before I realized we’d be keeping Pell warm by lying on either side of her.
“What?” he asked, a half smile on his face as he tried to read my expression.
“Nothing,” I said.
We lay down on either side of Pell and pulled the foil blanket over us.
Rex looked at me over Pell’s head and smiled.
Even with Pell between us, there was something intimate about lying under the blanket with Rex. I wondered if maybe Pell was right, and I liked him in a way I hadn’t realized. Then I thought of Del. And his kiss. And suddenly it seemed like I was torn between a half dog and a half salamander. I blushed in the darkness, ashamed of myself for thinking of them that way. I still didn’t know what had become of Del, but I was getting to know Rex pretty damn well. He wasn’t half anything, or point-zero-five, or whatever. He was just Rex. They wer
e just people. Although, to be honest, they weren’t exactly normal people.
So why can’t you find a normal boy? I asked myself. Then it occurred to me that if Andrew was a normal boy, maybe normal wasn’t what I wanted after all.
Rex’s breathing fell into a steady rhythm, a counterpoint to Pell’s. Then so did mine, and I slipped into a fitful sleep, puzzled that I was suddenly trying to find a boy at all.
FIFTY-SEVEN
When Rex woke me for my turn on watch, the sky was a slate blue.
“It’s almost light out,” I said, whispering so as not to awaken the others. Sly was asleep next to Pell, where Rex had been earlier. “You should have woken me earlier,” I said, stretching out my limbs. “You’re going to be exhausted.”
Rex smiled. “I’ll be okay. I slept earlier.”
With that he crawled under the portion of foil blanket I had just vacated. It barely covered half of him.
I shook my head and walked a tight circle around the camp, more to get my blood moving than to monitor the perimeter. That boulder was less than fifteen yards from the camp. When I climbed up onto it, I could clearly see the camp and the area around it.
In the distance a Lev train zipped across the horizon like a shooting star. As the sky slowly lightened, hilltops rose out of the thick fog, like sea serpents undulating across the ocean.
I smiled, thinking Del would like that, wishing he could see it, wondering if maybe he was on one of those hilltops. I tried to picture him again, to conjure him safe and warm and comfortable, but once more I had a hard time bringing him into focus.
So instead I thought of home, and the trouble waiting for me there. With the clarity of early morning, I was more certain than ever that I was doing the right thing. But I also knew I was going to pay a price for it.
I tried to think about something else—anything else—something positive and good, and just as the sun appeared, a sliver of red on the horizon, I heard a twig breaking behind me and I turned to see Rex approaching. He smiled and climbed effortlessly up onto the rock next to me.
