by James Sperl
Josh grabbed his mother’s arm firmly. “Mom, trust me. I’m right behind you.” Josh whipped around in time to see the claw freefall onto the very car he suspected of being next. The metal talons clenched the car and the arm stiffened for retraction.
Thrusting his mother forward, Josh all but threw Catherine into the hole. Dropping with a yelp, she managed to clamp onto the top rung of the ladder. She cast disapproving, yet knowingly ineffective glares at her son before beginning her climb down.
The excavator arm pulled upward with a groan, the car creaking under its own weight as it lifted from the ground.
New Humans swarmed around the circumference of the pit, anticipating the impending light that would momentarily saturate the enclosed area.
Josh positioned himself over the manhole, one foot on each side. He looked back at the woman and offered her an icy smile. “You haven’t begun to see a fight.”
With that he pulled his legs together and fell into the hole just as the impaled car rotated out of sight and light spilled into the pit. New Humans converged on it, flowing into the small alcove in droves and surrounded the manhole.
Josh descended into murky blackness, the only light source snuffed out by the silhouettes of numerous heads staring down at him.
They ran for what seemed like an hour. They didn’t know which direction they were heading and tried not to notice the smell. They only knew they needed to be away from where they were. As far as possible.
Catherine tried to keep a mental map as they fled, attempting to route them in a way that would bring them within close proximity of their destination. But with a handful of dead ends and acute direction changes that belied the simple, gridded street system above ground, Catherine found herself hopelessly lost. They would be looking for them, probably scouring the city block by block. It was too soon to venture topside.
Out of breath and fatigued, the group came to rest in a tunnel juncture. A dirty patch of concrete hovered just over the canal ways where putrid water trickled along in tiny rivulets. It was large enough to accommodate Catherine, Madeline, Leanne and Josh who desperately craved rest. And after a brief discussion, decided that it was probably in their best interest to take a few moments and recover.
Catherine checked her watch and realized, to her surprise, that it was only ten thirty. Good, she thought. They still had more then twelve hours to reach the shelter. Plenty of time. They could hole up here and recuperate while the New Humans exhausted their search. Then they could head back to the surface after things had settled down, get their bearings and head for the mountains. In the meantime they would just rest awhile.
Catherine situated herself with her back against the tunnel’s concrete wall. She could feel her heart rate slow and her body silently thank her for sitting. She imagined the others probably felt much the same way judging by the vacant, enervated expressions each person currently wore.
Yes, they would rest now.
But only for a while, Catherine told herself.
26
Daylight
The voice came again but she didn’t want it to be there. She tried to block it out, but it kept coming back again and again disrupting the beautiful sound of the nearby waterfalls. She could feel warmth on her face and thought for a minute that she might be on a tropical beach somewhere. Maybe had taken that vacation after all and merely forgotten it.
Then she felt the icy sting on her cheek and heard that voice again. It sounded like a woman she used to know or maybe dreamt about. But before she could put a name to the ghostly face drifting around in her mind, another harsh pricking of needles erupted on the side of her face.
A different voice sounded. This time it was male. And it sounded a lot like her son.
“Muuung!” came the word, foreign-sounding and bloated.
Images flashed through her mind. Images of mushrooms and school buses, dragons with claws and junkyards.
The voice called again. “Muuuum,” it said, seeming more familiar this time, clearer.
The sound of the waterfall dissolved away and was replaced by a weak dribbling, like a running faucet. Accompanying this was an indescribable odor and a feeling of urgency she couldn’t quite place.
“Mom!” the voice said loudly.
And then Catherine opened her eyes.
Josh and Madeline were staring directly at her. Their eyes were wide with a caustic mixture of anxiety, apprehension and fear.
Catherine blinked repeatedly, forcing her eyes open as she tried to shake the sleep from her frame.
Josh gave her a moment to fully rouse before divulging the terrible situation in which they found themselves. He imagined she had probably already recognized it, had maybe felt the spotty warmth of the rays on her leg. But in the event she missed the grated shafts of dusty yellow streaming in over his shoulder, shared the secret:
“It’s daylight.”
Catherine couldn’t believe it. All of the aimless running around, the directionless fleeing and yet here they stood. When she initially crawled from the hole her senses were assaulted by two distinct and varied occurrences: The first was the amazing early heat; the second was the sight of the imposing Sacramento Mountains—directly in front of her.
Quickly orienting herself, Catherine discovered that they had run south of their destination by several miles. Sending Josh on a two-minute recon, he returned with the name of Calle de Oro, the street on which they now found themselves. Locating it on her map, she learned it was one of only a handful of residential streets in a tiny neighborhood just south of Alamogordo. And, indeed, when she looked to the north, she could make out the more dominant structures of the city on the horizon.
But if what she were reading was accurate, it would be a quick passage through the suburb, utilizing short and relatively unpopulated roads until finally reaching the boundaries of the national park. From there it would be an arduous and exhausting uphill climb into the mountains through scrub and sand, hopefully one that would lead them to the shelter. She hadn’t yet told the others about the SAT phone and how she had given away the only source for locating the shelter. But she had the coordinates. And she knew how to read a map. The location was by no means pinpointed, but she thought she could find the general area. They still had a shot. She only hoped the New Humans hadn’t considered other innovative ways to give chase through the rocky, uneven terrain should they be discovered.
Catherine turned to the others with a gleam in her eye. They only had a little over five hours. Five hours. And in that time they not only needed the stamina to make the journey, they needed the wherewithal to track down their final location amid treacherous terrain. But for the first time, and despite the narrow window of opportunity, she actually felt like they could make it.
“All right,” she said to the exhausted group. “Let’s get moving.”
Everyone was dog-tired. Add to that the fact that no one had eaten or had a drop of water in over ten hours and the insurmountable suddenly seemed inconceivable. So it came as a bit of a shock when the group, pumped up on pure adrenaline but already staggering from spent reserves, was suddenly forced to a halt by a presence in the road.
Feet skidded in gravel and it was all Catherine could do to keep from screaming. Leanne and Shelby were less successful in stifling their cries.
She looked to be about seven. Her hair was pulled into ratty pigtails and she wore a relatively clean summer dress, blue with white trim at the sleeves and hem. She was barefoot, her toes caked with mud.
Catherine stood frozen with fear, the little girl only staring at she and the others without an expression. Catherine understood what it was standing mere feet from her and could feel the blood leave her face at the thought of all that could occur. An image of Sean passed through her mind and her fear was suddenly compounded.
A slight whimper drew Catherine’s attention to the ground. Lying at the girl’s feet on its side was a dog, a Labrador it seemed. It panted laboriously in rapid huffs as if it had just
had the run of its life. But Catherine knew this was not the case.
Debating the best course of action, she made a decision that sent a chill rippling through her body. She knew they could turn and run, besting the little girl with no problem. The concern was what happened as a result. Did the girl call for help? Did she attack? There were too many scenarios to consider, none of them leaving her feeling particularly confident. The only option that seemed to make any sense was the one she least wanted to try. But what she wanted didn’t have a place at the table right now.
Having made the decision to attempt communication, Catherine crouched down in the street, much to the consternation of Josh.
“Mom, what the hell are you doing?”
Catherine threw out her arms in a gesture of “silence”, all her attention focused on the young girl and what she would say.
The girl eyed Catherine for a moment, then let her eyes slowly trail back to the dog, as if this were the more interesting of the two choices. The dog was panting harder now, its chest rising and falling in dramatic swells. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and lay on the ground, eyes bulging wide as it whimpered in obvious pain.
Catherine swallowed dryly and formed a sentence in her mind. She opened her mouth to speak and could feel the prickle of her parched throat work to form the first word. But just as her vocal chords became functional, her subtle plan of contact was suddenly thrown into disarray when the dog exploded.
Madeline and Shelby screamed, jarring the girl’s attention back on to them. Spattered with muck, the girl cocked her head in mild interest as if this were a sound previously unknown to her. She gawked at Catherine and the others uncertainly, seemingly oblivious to the spidery-looking thing that slithered out of the decimated animal in front of her.
Catherine’s legs suddenly felt like lead weights and as the innocent looking girl—who was anything but—opened her mouth in an impossibly wide oval, Catherine half-expected something to crawl out of it. She knew what was happening even before she heard the sound of the first motor. And as Josh corralled the women away from the girl, an already backpedaling Catherine turned and yelled with the intensity of a drill instructor the only word that currently existed in her vocabulary: “Run!”
27
Uphill Battles
Catherine looked over her shoulder as she ran. She could hear the distant sound of multiple engines and knew this was it. There were no more chances now. They either made it or they didn’t. The chase of her life was on and she wanted to see for herself. Wanted to know how many of them there were.
Despite the overwhelming heat from both the sun and her own body, Catherine still managed an icy chill at the sight that made its way steadily up the gentle grade toward them. If she were conservative she might suppose dozens. But she knew she couldn’t be that lucky and the number was probably closer to several hundred—several hundred New Humans clamoring up the dusty apron of the Sacramento Mountains. All with a single purpose. All determined. All gaining ground.
Catherine and the others had already managed a couple of hundred feet in altitude and were rapidly approaching the more treacherous aspects of the mountain range where the real hiking would begin. For once they hit the mouth of the nearest canyon it would become a matter of will. And luck.
Shelby pulled at her mother, virtually dragging the poor woman along as she tramped up the hill in clunky, lumbering steps. Leanne seemed to be moving just fine and assisted Shelby in her efforts. Catherine assumed the young girl was running on pure adrenaline, the scare down the hill catapulting her into overdrive. Josh had taken the lead and was acting as scout, but never strayed too far from the group. In fact, he was almost exerting twice the energy as the others as he leapt ahead to search for routes, then doubled back to make sure everyone was still with him.
The group was sweating profusely and their collective gasps for air sounded like the inner workings of a dry cleaning business. Feet ground against sand and rock as they pumped uphill, legs brushing past desert scrub brush. Bodies fell and clamored back to their feet, hands pushing off the prickly earth as thorny cholla and other cacti nipped at them as they ran.
Leanne staggered then vomited down the front of her shirt. But she never faltered and only briefly hesitated to swipe the residue from her mouth with a sopping wet forearm.
Madeline appeared as if she could collapse at any moment, her reddened face and bulging eyes doing nothing to reassure an alternative outcome. Shelby was equally exhausted, but remained steadfast as she bore the daughterly duty of aiding her bone-weary mother with unswaying devotion.
Catherine had never exerted herself in this way in her life. She could feel nausea overtaking her and likened it to the morning sickness she used to have when pregnant with Abby. That sudden surge of queasiness that would come and go without any notice. And as she tried to swallow dust-tinged spit, felt certain she wouldn’t be saying goodbye to its discomfort anytime soon.
Josh stormed up ahead, panting heavily now. He rounded an outcropping of boulders and disappeared along the backside of them.
They must be close, Catherine thought. Had to be. Mountains towered over them now and if her memory served, the canyon Warren had labeled as “Canyon A” —an alias lest the printouts fall into hostile hands—should be coming up any minute. She could see the remnants of a dry creek bed emerge from somewhere up ahead and snake down the hillside. With a little luck this would be the inlet to the mountain chain they were seeking. Once inside they could move along the rocky beds and winding canyon walls and put some obstacles between themselves and their foes.
Josh’s head reappeared excitedly. He waved with his entire arm in a giant sweeping windmill. “Come on, come on!” he shouted, “We can head through here!”
Catherine snuck another glance at the New Humans as she and the others reached the outcropping. They were spreading out now, some even falling behind. Catherine prayed with all her might that Warren was correct in his hypothesis regarding them. He had claimed that a New Human retained all the knowledge and memories of the host after it was born. She only hoped this extended to each person’s physicality as well. Maybe they could use the relative sedentary lifestyles of much of the populace to their advantage. In short, maybe they would tire, too.
Looking down the hill at them, their dispersed pattern suggested she might be on to something. Several lagged and she could swear she spotted others walking. But it didn’t matter if the majority of them petered out. All it took was one. And in a group that large, the odds were decidedly stacked against them.
It was ten seventeen. They’d been scurrying along the creek bed for the better part of two hours, hopping rocks and sidestepping boulders. They pushed until they felt like they couldn’t possibly continue any farther. When they reached a point where the dried up stream dead-ended into a limestone cliff face, the inevitable had finally arrived: they were going to have to climb.
Madeline broke into tears, her sobbing working in direct opposition to her body’s need for oxygen. “I...can’t,” she puffed. “I can’t.”
“You have to, mom,” Shelby countered. Strands of her sweat soaked hair stuck to her face like errant blood vessels. “We don’t have a choice. We’ve...got to go up.”
Madeline sucked air in heaving gasps. She doubled over, her hands on her knees. Perspiration dripped in sizable drops from her face, the water drying almost instantly as it struck the sun-heated rocks below her.
Josh had already struck up the side of a steep hill near the creek. He forged through a dense thicket of desert sage and other assorted brush, blazing a trail toward the ridgeline.
“How’s it look?” Catherine said between breaths.
Josh surveyed the land closely. He wiped his face with his shirt then spat, his chest inflating and deflating in rapid breaths. “It’s steep and narrow...but I think we can do it.”
“All right. Then up it is...Lead the way.”
Madeline fell to the ground, crying hysterically, completely broken.
Shelby crouched to lift her as did Leanne, but Madeline shook her arm away.
“I can’t do it...” Madeline mumbled. “I’m not...going anywhere.”
“Madeline,” Leanne said, “you have to get up. We have to keep moving.”
“Mom, please.” Shelby was approaching tears. “Don’t do this. We’ve got to go. Please get up.”
Madeline only shook her head in tired, drunken arcs. “No...I’m done. I can’t do...anymore.”
Shelby stood, tears streaming down her face. She ran her fingers through her wet hair and walked away. Madeline only stared at the ground.
This was a scenario Catherine had not planned for. If Madeline didn’t move soon, Catherine would be forced to make a decision—one she desperately didn’t want to have to make. But they couldn’t just sit here.
She crouched alongside Madeline and put a hand on the woman’s sweaty back. “Madeline, we’re close. We’re so very close. You have to find some hidden reserve, some sort of mental fuel that can get you through. Please, you have to get up.”
Madeline lifted her weary head laboriously, looked Catherine in her blood shot eyes. “I can’t feel my legs, Catherine. My chest feels like it’s going to explode.”
“We all feel that way, Madeline. There isn’t a one of us that’s not exhausted beyond words. But we have to keep moving. We have to.”
Madeline tried to spit, but only drooled. The woman was spent. Catherine could see that. But they were losing precious time.
Kneeling down, Catherine placed her mouth beside Madeline’s ear. She spoke just above a whisper so that only Madeline could hear her. “Please don’t do this to me, Madeline. Please. Don’t force me to leave you here. Because I will. I’ll hate it, but I will. We are almost there. And there are four other people you have to consider in this, not the least of whom is your daughter. Don’t deprive her. She’ll need you. You can’t give up on her. Not now.”
