Children of the Mountain (Book 3): Lightning Child

by Hakok, R. A.

  I turn around and look at the road ahead, watching as it winds its way through the valley floor. There’s little of anything for what looks like miles, not even a barn or a stand of blackened trees to break the emptiness. This is as far as I’ve been; after Warren we’ll be in new territory. I worry what that will mean for our progress. I can’t risk keeping us out after dark, not in a place like this. From now on as soon as the sun starts dipping towards the horizon we’ll need to turn over what remains of the day to finding shelter.

  I guess Mags must have had the same thought, or maybe mine are just easy to read, because she announces she’s going on ahead to find us somewhere to spend the night. I’m not sure I like that idea. I didn’t particularly care for how he delivered the message, but Jake had one thing right: it’s not safe out there; that much was true even before I learned the world’s not as empty as I once thought it was. And there’s another part to it, too; one I don’t care to admit. The outside, scavenging, finding us places to stay - that’s my job; it’s maybe the only thing I know how to do. If anyone has to hike out to find us shelter, it should be me.

  I don’t say that last bit out loud, of course. Realizing how things might sound to others has always been what you’d call a development area for me, but even I can see that’s not the kind of reasoning that’s apt to appeal to Mags. So instead I remind her of the rule. You always scavenge in pairs. There are no exceptions.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘We can’t both go. One of us needs to stay with them.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it.’

  She hesitates for a moment, like she’s trying to figure out a way to say what she has to.

  ‘It makes more sense for it to be me. I can cover more ground than you.’

  She waits to see if I have anything to say to that, but I don’t. After a few seconds she pulls up her hood, like it’s decided.

  I tell her to wait. I shuck off my pack and set it down in the snow, then dig in one of the side pockets, pull out a Ziploc bag. I have to take off my mittens to break the seal. For an instant there’s the sweet smell of gun oil before the wind snatches it away again. I reach inside for the pistol Marv gave me and hold it out.

  ‘It’s already loaded. I took the bullets from the gun Peck left behind.’

  She hesitates for a moment, then takes it from me. I show her how the safety works and how to chamber the first round. There’s a soft snick-snick as she racks the slide. I cleaned and oiled it before we set off, so the mechanism should be good. She examines it for a moment, then closes her fingers around the grip. It looks too big for her hand.

  ‘I don’t know how to shoot it.’

  ‘You just point and squeeze. There’s not much more to it.’ I say it with a shrug, like I might have spent my formative years terrorizing cattle towns alongside Billy the Kid and his Regulators, rather than counting tins for Quartermaster in Eden’s stores. I see her eyeing the pistol, like she’s not sure she really wants it, so I give her the talk Marv gave me, about how if she comes across people she thinks might be no good she should just point it up in the air and let off a round. That would be enough to get most folks to turn tail he said, although even as I hear myself repeat those words I wonder. I can’t help but think it’d take more than a loud bang and a puff of gun smoke to get someone like Hicks to cut and run.

  She checks the safety again then slides the pistol into the pocket of her parka, shifts her bandana back in place and sets off. I watch as she hikes out ahead. I wasn’t sure at first, but I’ve been watching her these past few days and I know it now. Her strides are measured, deliberate, like she’s checking herself, holding back; like she could go faster than she’s showing me. Even so, she’s breaking trail with a pace I doubt I could match. She’s almost at the first bend when I hear the crunch of snow behind me. I turn to see Jake, hurrying up the slope. He draws level, unsnaps his respirator, but it’s a few seconds before he has breath enough to ask his question.

  ‘Where’s she going?’

  ‘To find us shelter.’

  He looks up at me, incredulous.

  ‘You…you just let her go? All by herself?’

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t answer, I just keep watching her. More of the Juvies are arriving now, huffing and puffing their way up the incline. They gather round, making sure to keep a respectable distance back from the kid. Jake pulls his goggles onto his forehead and stares at me, waiting for an answer.

  ‘You want to stop her Jake, be my guest.’

  He glares at me a moment longer, then points his snowshoes in the direction of the Gas ‘n’ Go. One by one the others follow until there’s only me, Lauren and Johnny left.

  For a while we watch Mags. As she nears the bend her stride seems to lengthen, and for the last few seconds before she disappears it’s almost as though she’s bounding through the snow. Then she’s gone and there’s nothing left but her tracks, the shallow indents already softening with the wind.

  Lauren takes a step closer. For a while she says nothing, but then she turns and looks up at me.

  ‘Is that normal?’

  I don’t answer. The truth is I’m not really sure what that means any more. She rests a mitten on the arm of my parka, squeezes once, then follows the others into the gas station.

  *

  WE LEAVE THE MOUNTAINS BEHIND, the serried peaks giving way to low, rolling hills that are much more to the Juvies’ liking. They find themselves a pace, just like Mags said they would. It’s barely faster than the one they set out with, however.

  A week after we quit Mount Weather we pick up the interstate, a wide, furrowed scar winding its way through endless frozen wasteland. For mile after mile we cleave to it, trudging ever south. We pass exits for places called Thorn, Golan, Ruther, but take none of them. Our days take on a pattern. We start early, covering what miles we can while legs are fresh. When we stop for lunch Mags leaves us. I eat with the kid while the others huddle together in the far corner of whatever gas station or truck stop we’re favoring with our custom, although sometimes he waits outside, watching the road like he expects her to come back. Afterwards I lead us on again, but slower now. With little to do but coax the stragglers and watch for her return the afternoons drag. Each evening we trade the highway for whatever roadside diner or motel she’s found for us, only to rejoin it the following morning.

  I watch Mags for any sign of what I saw that first night back in Mount Weather, but there’s nothing, or at least nothing I can detect. If anything she grows quieter; it’s almost like with every day that passes now she draws a little further into herself. I ask her what it is, but she says nothing. I think I can guess, though. Sometimes with dusk settling I spot places from the highway that look like they might do for shelter, but she just shakes her head and says they’re not for us. I don’t ask her why, because I know. She’s already been inside. It used to be Marv’s job to check the dark places, and for a short while after he died it became mine.

  Now that job is hers.

  On the morning of our thirteenth day on the road we see our first sign for Richmond, the almost-halfway point in our journey, but for the rest of that day and the next it remains always ahead of us, seeming to get no closer. At last we round a long curve in the interstate and an exit sign for the city hoves into view. I pick up the pace, ignoring the protests from behind me. Mags has been gone since early; I’m keen to catch up with her and get the Juvies to shelter while there’s still a few hours left in the day. I know from the newspaper articles I used to collect that the city got hit in the strikes, but Marv’s map shows it was a big place, once; there’s bound to be something left I can scavenge, maybe stretch out our supplies a little. They could certainly use it; we’ve not been making near the time I had allowed when we quit Mount Weather. It’ll probably be the last opportunity we get, too. South of Richmond we join interstate again, and that’ll bring us all the way into North Carolina.

  The kid senses the new urgency and sets off, his
head bent to the snow. When he gets to the off-ramp he scurries straight up it without so much as a backward glance. I’m about to holler at him, but then he stops of his own accord and waits while I make my way up to join him.

  From the interchange the land falls away before us and then lays flat, as far as the eye can see. I scan the horizon while I wait for the Juvies to catch up, searching for any hint of what lies ahead: a crumbling skyscraper, a listing apartment building, even the spindly jib of a tower crane; anything to break the featureless gray. But there’s nothing, or at least as close to it as makes no difference.

  As soon as everyone’s gathered we set off again. The few buildings we pass now are little more than husks. I stare up at one as we trudge by. It’s been stripped to its skeleton, its walls blown out, what little remains of its insides strewn with blackened debris. Spidey’s been quiet since before we quit Mount Weather, but now he starts up again. It’s low level, a not-so-urgent rumble I could probably drown out if I put my mind to it. But for once I understand what’s got him on edge. I’m used to how the world is now; I’ve seen the work the virus has done. This is different, though; a manner of destruction I have not witnessed before. The Juvies sense it too. They grow quiet, like this place, the very air we’re breathing, is thick with despair.

  I spot a sign ahead. The gantry arm leans towards us, like something has pushed it over. The paint is blistered, making what’s written there hard to read; it may say Downtown, but there’s not enough of the letters left to be sure. As I pass underneath I look up. On the side facing the city the metal has been scorched black.

  We start to hit traffic. At first just a vehicle here or there. A tractor-trailer on its side, the molten remains of its tires still clinging to the rims. The shell of a four-by-four, front wheels stuck in the low gully of the median, rump pointing skyward, like a steer down on its knees and waiting for the bolt gun. I drag my hand across its flank, dislodging an armful of ashen snow. Underneath the paintwork’s bubbled, just like the sign.

  More now, but all the same, until soon the road’s choked with burnt-out wrecks, the glass blown from their windows, their insides melted. They rest on their sides or on their roofs; others protrude from the snow at improbable angles, like they were little more than Hot Wheels, held to the fire and then scattered, the work of a sulking child.

  We keep going. Soon we have to pick our way between them, our progress slowed by the weight of carnage. A stake-bed’s impaled itself on the sheared iron of a guardrail; the kid ducks under but the rest of us have to squeeze past its slatted sides, one at a time. Up ahead he stops by the hood of a semi that’s somehow managed to stay on its wheels and points forward with one mitten, like he’s seen something there. When I catch up to him he turns to look up at me through his outsize goggles.

  I set the container with the virus down in the snow. What I thought to be a low rise in the road is in fact the rim of a shallow crater; it stretches off on both sides, almost as far as the eye can see. Within its ragged circumference there’s nothing left but the scorched char-pits of foundations exposed by the blast, mercifully filling with snow.

  I let my gaze linger for a few moments, taking in the details of the cauterized bowl that was once a city. Nothing stands that might offer shelter. We have no choice but to cross, however; it’s already too late to contemplate going around.

  I wait for the last of the stragglers to join us then I start making my way down. The sides are steep; I hold my hand out to the kid but he just shakes his head, like he wants none of it. Without markers it’s hard to tell where the road once was, so we just keep heading south. I keep my eyes on the opposite rim of the crater, expecting Mags to appear there at any moment. She would normally have returned to us by now, but I tell myself not to fret; she’ll have had to travel farther than usual to find us somewhere to pass the night.

  By the time we’ve hauled ourselves over the lip on the far side there’s little left of the day. I can already feel the temperature starting to drop, so I pick up the pace, and for once there are no complaints from behind me. A couple of miles further on we reach a river Marv’s map says is the Appomattox. A low concrete bridge, squat, ugly, but sturdy enough to have survived the blast, spans the sluggish gray waters. On the far side a lone figure, making her way towards us.

  Nobody looks back as we cross.

  *

  WE PASS THAT NIGHT in a Target Mags has found for us just north of a place called Chester. I don’t much care for the malls but she says it’s the best there is, at least within any distance the Juvies might be capable of reaching this side of noon tomorrow. It makes me wonder how far ahead she’s been.

  I stand by the entrance as they unsnap their snowshoes and file inside. We’ve been on the road longer than usual and they look pretty beat. When I’ve counted the last of them in I head off to find a place to stash the virus. By the time I return there’s already a fire going by the checkouts. I head down one of the aisles, making my way towards the back of the store, where Mags is waiting with the kid.

  That was Lauren’s idea. She took me to one side, not long after Warren, and suggested it’d be for the best. It wasn’t her, she said; she felt bad even bringing it up. But the truth was the kid was making some of the others nervous. I can’t say it was altogether a surprise. I remember how I’d felt, the first time I laid eyes on him, crouched at the back of his cage in that basement room in The Greenbrier’s bunker. His appearance has improved a little since, but the truth of it is he’s still pale as a sheet, coat hanger thin, and the shadows around his eyes are proving a lot more stubborn than Mags’. That habit he has of dropping to all fours persists, too. I know there’s nothing in it; it’s just from all the time he spent in the cage. It doesn’t exactly set a mind at ease, however.

  I wasn’t sure how Mags was going to react, but she just said okay, almost like she’d been expecting it. I told her what Lauren had said to me: it wouldn’t be for long. The Juvies’ll get used to him, same as I did. It’s the same as with the snowshoes. We just have to give them time.

  I watch as he chooses a spot not far from us and rolls out his sleeping bag. Mags hands him an MRE carton and he lifts the flap and upends it, searching among the pouches and packets that spill out for the HOOAH! he favors. He tears the wrapper with his teeth and pushes the bar up; it’s gone in a couple of quick bites. He spends a moment examining the foil for crumbs and then looks over at me hopefully. I wait until Mags is busy fixing herself a coffee and then dig mine from the carton. She’ll be mad if she catches me; she says we have to wean him off them, get him on the food pouches, even though it’s been a while since she finished one of her own. He’s yet to show much interest in those, though, and he’ll never get to a regular size if he doesn’t eat.

  When she’s not looking I toss the candy bar over. He snatches it from the air and it disappears without a sound, I think up the sleeve of his jacket, but it happens too quick for me to be sure. Then he curls up on top of his sleeping bag and closes his eyes. Seconds later he’s out.

  I finish my meal and climb into the sleeping bag. The floor is hard, even through the quilted material, but I guess I must be more tired than I had figured; as soon as I lay my head down I feel my eyelids growing heavy. I hear the zip being drawn back and Mags slips in beside me. She takes off the beanie she wears and sets it on the ground.

  I drape my arm around her, my fingers tracing a line across the taut curve of her stomach. She still has weight to gain back, but then I tell myself she was always thin. My fingertips come to rest on the angle of her hip. The skin there is chilled, like it’s been left outside the sleeping bag. I shiver.

  ‘You cold?’

  She shakes her head but I pull her close anyway, hoping to warm her up. I’m already slipping down into that place where your thoughts unravel and you lose yourself to sleep. Without thinking I press my lips to the back of her head.

  She lies there for a moment, not moving, then slowly lifts one hand and runs her fingertips a
cross her scalp where I’ve just kissed it.

  ‘It’s not growing back, is it?’

  I brush my lips over the skin there and tell her I hadn’t noticed. The low, faithless voice inside my head pipes up before I have a chance to silence it.

  Liar.

  She just shakes her head.

  ‘It’s not, least not as quickly as it should. Back in Eden, when I had the mohawk, I’d have to shave it every couple of days.’

  I slide my hand up from her waist. I checked the crucifix I gave her last night, while she slept, but now I reach for it again. I run my fingers over the crudely-cast metal, relieved to find the surface unchanged. For a long time she doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she’s still awake. The scanner gave the kid back some semblance of sleep but for Mags it’s the opposite; I don’t reckon she gets much more than an hour a night now.

  She glances over at the small form curled up on the other side of the fire. He hasn’t stirred, but she lowers her voice anyway.

  ‘I don’t think Johnny’s hair’s growing back at all. What do you think it means, Gabe?’

  I kiss the back of her head again.

  ‘I don’t think it means anything.’

  That answer doesn’t seem to placate her any more than it does the voice inside my own head. It feels like it has something to say, but this time I hush it before it has a chance to get going. There’s no way she’s sick. No way. Whatever chance I might have had when we first set out, I couldn’t hope to keep up with her now. I reckon it’d be the same with the kid, too, if it wasn’t for those little legs of his.

  She shifts around inside my arms.