by Oliver Higgs
My body tenses up and a sound comes out like I’m choking, and then I’m roaring and pounding the ground, smashing it with my fists, because something must be punished, because the world couldn’t spare me even this last petty cruelty. My fingers clench into claws. When they let go, I breathe heavily, hang my head and hug my knees. I sit numb for a time. Slowly, I pick up the desalinator and begin again.
When I get back to Echo, she drinks gratefully, but it’s not a lasting comfort. Thunder booms. Distant but getting closer.
“We have to start walking,” I say.
“Why?” Echo asks.
I have no answer. The storm? Food? Medicine? Where could we possibly find medicine? The weight of our needs is overwhelming, and her only question is “why?” I suppress my anger.
“We can’t stay here,” I say.
Finally, Echo nods.
I help her up. Yet it’s immediately clear that progress is impossible. She simply can’t walk. Any pressure on her calf pains her, and every shift in movement lights up the nerves in her shoulder. The wounds are mostly cauterized so maybe she’ll avoid infection, but she’s suffering from some kind of nerve damage. It’s possible the mine used a particle pump instead of a pulse laser. My grandfather taught me the difference. Both will put holes in you, but particle pumps use packets of molecular material instead of focused light. The material will penetrate your flesh before breaking up inside, sending miniature shockwaves through the surrounding tissue, like a dozen microscopic shotguns. My arm is swollen heavily around my own wound, yet it’s not giving me nearly as much pain as Echo's wounds are giving her.
We have to keep moving regardless. There’s no significant shelter here, and the sky is quite clear about its intentions. We make it perhaps half a mile–the longest half-mile of Echo’s life. She’s shaking and close to collapse. Then the sky breaks, and walls of water hit us all at once. They come in rippling, diagonal sheets, so thick I can almost distinguish solid shapes. It’s as though some ancient, otherworldly elementals have come to frolic beneath the desert clouds, phasing in and out of their watery forms. The physical force of the rain is astounding. It falls with such noise that I can barely hear the thunder. A watery hell has opened up around us. A river grows around our boots.
I’ve already spotted the house ahead, the only one in sight with most of its roof intact. It looked so close a moment ago. Suddenly I fear we won’t make it. I have to pick up Echo and sprint the last hundred meters. My bicep screams at me. The pain is fierce. I block everything but the sight of that doorway. Ten steps away, I lose my balance and send us both crashing to the ground. Echo cries out. Her eyes roll back in her head. I can feel the force of the flood tugging at my body. I haul her up again, yelling crazily with the effort, and stumble through the open doorway.
The house has holes in the roof and one of the walls. The windows are broken and the doors are missing. Water is pouring in, running across the floor, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than being outside. A rotting staircase leads to a second floor, but we don’t dare risk it. In the kitchen sits a heavy oak table. I push it into the driest corner and take off my pack. The pack is soaked, but my old blanket inside is mostly dry.
“Help me,” Echo says. I look at her–and stare, baffled, because she’s leaning against a wall, shivering badly, with her pants down to her calves.
“I can’t do it …” she says vaguely. She intends to take off her clothes, and I’m still staring stupidly because I can’t comprehend her purpose. She has to explain. I’ve been living alone in the desert, and the only body warmth I’ve ever known is my own. Yet she’s right. We’re not lighting a fire anytime soon, and with the way things are going, we’re probably going to die of hypothermia before the night is through.
I help her out of her clothes and onto the table. She winces, eyes closed, with each movement. Only her necklace remains to her, and she clasps it tightly, her fingers molesting the tawdry heart-shaped jewel. Lightning illuminates her pale body, the curve of her thighs, the smallness of her breasts, the braille of her nipples. With each flash, the world is divided into light and shadow, into black and white.
When I was younger–not long before the fire, in fact–Berkley came to me and Crispin one day and insisted we follow him to an oasis a few miles from Farmington. There was a pond there, hidden away in the curve of the land beneath a small cliff. We’d often gone in on sweltering summer days. That day, however, we approached by stealth until we could espy what lay ahead. Crispin’s older sister, Isabel, and her friend, Amelia Day, had been swimming naked in the pond. They’d laughed and frolicked before returning to the shore.
Instantly, I’d understood the value of the secret there uncovered; a treasure of immense worth. Isabel’s long, lithe body emerging from that pond–plastered with golden hair, shedding glorious rivulets like jewels shimmering in the summer sun–was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen … is still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The moment possessed a magic that went beyond the girl herself, beyond desire, to touch something pure and powerful, something hidden, something divine. Isabel had been transformed into an ethereal being in that moment, and I’d gaped at her in abject awe … until Crispin had made too much noise, and the girls had dressed and run after us.
In the dark ruins of the storm-racked house, Echo’s nudity offers something different. It lacks the full, curving, sunlit glory of that distant day. The necessity of the situation is a blunt fact, and she’s huddled on the table like some starving, wretched animal in the wild. Yet despite all the pain and misery, despite any lingering anger, there is something sacred in this moment too, a fragility I want to hold and protect, and for an instant it drives away the cold and hunger and earthly troubles–even grief over Lectric, for a time. The dark feelings drop away, and she’s Annabel Lee again. Things have gone terribly wrong, and she needs me.
She’s also shivering violently while I stand staring like an idiot. Quickly I strip off my own clothes, keeping only my ragged under-shorts out of an awkward sense of embarrassment, and huddle on the table beside her. The dry blanket is a blessing. She leans into me and I put my good arm around her, and we press close together. Her skin is cold and clammy but grows slowly less so.
A river gushes over the floor beneath the table, carrying bits of debris. The lightning screams. A tree splits and dies somewhere out in the wastes, but we are secreted away in this hidden sanctuary, and I can’t exactly call it good–because we’re in deep shit here, and the Library is still gone, and Lectric is still dead–yet I know this is a moment that will remain with me for all the days that are left to me.
At some point I use my pack as a pillow, and we manage to lie on the table. Echo can only lean on her uninjured shoulder. One of her hands remains cradling her old necklace. I spoon her, and her skin is smooth and warm now. I’m very conscious of the positions of my hands and the rise and fall of her stomach beneath the one, and if I wasn’t so exhausted my heart would be pounding for an entirely different reason … but things are what they are, and we drift off to the waning fury of the storm.
When I come to, my body is stiff and achy, my right arm numb beneath her. Echo inhales sharply when I shift her turn onto my back. The rain still comes, only gently now, with a friendly patter, as if in apology. I don’t want to face the world just yet, so I doze off a second time.
Around noon I’m up again, feeling weak and hungry. Mercifully, the rain has stopped. Echo still sleeps. I extract myself and find our waterlogged clothes pushed to one wall with the rest of the flotsam.
Outside, the sun is shockingly bright. I drape our wet clothes over a broken fence and load up my crossbow. Then I catch myself looking around for Lectric. He always comes with me. But he’s simply not there, and there’s nothing to do but set off into the desert alone.
Right from the start, the day is a drastic reversal of the last. It’s as if the universe is making reparations. Only an hour in, I put a bolt through a vulture who’s picking at a
recently dead fox, and both corpses come with me for the fire. It pains me to aim, as it’s necessary to use both arms, but the pain’s not overly inhibitive and it fades when I can relax the injured bicep. Soon after bagging the vulture, I find a patch of wild melons and edible cacti. But the real find comes on the way back, entirely unlooked-for.
Having ranged north, I’m following the coast south toward the house when I stop in my tracks. A heavy-duty wheelbarrow sits by the back door of a half-standing abode. It’s made of a black alloy from the World Before, and somehow it doesn’t have a speck of rust. I throw the game and the fruit inside, and I’m commenting about our luck to Lectric before I realize again that he’s not at my heels. That part’s sobering, yes, but it’s like the fifth time I’ve done it today, which makes it slightly easier to bear. I never realized before how much I talk to Lectric while ranging into the wastes.
“Hell, why stop now, right boy?” I say, thinking of him listening from some vague, ineffable realm. Which is probably insane, but oh well.
In any case, the wheelbarrow really is a prize, not because it’ll carry food and supplies, but because it’ll carry Echo. I have no idea how long it will take her to heal. I’m not even sure she will heal. Our bodies are probably ill-equipped to deal with such unnatural wounds. The cauterization and saltwater-cleansing have prevented infection, and my arm is doing reasonably well, but the mine has struck a deeper nerve in Echo’s body. It isn’t physically crippling, but the pain is utterly debilitating. I’ve been wondering all morning if we were simply destined to live out our lives here, scavenging for food and braving the occasional storm.
In truth, if we found the right building, such a life wouldn’t be all that different from my old one. Yet it’s not what we’re meant for. Even if Cabal never comes back, we need to be on the move. We’re going somewhere, and I may not know where exactly, but I don’t want to stop until we get there.
When the house comes into view, Echo is standing outside with the blanket wrapped around her, leaning against the wall to keep the weight off her leg. Our clothes are still drying on the fence. It’s not until I’m close that I realize she’s in some kind of duress. Her hand is over her mouth and her eyes are wide, tearful.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“I’ve got food–and look!” I say, showcasing the wheelbarrow.
“I’m just an idiot,” she whispers.
It’s another few minutes before I figure it out. She was afraid I wouldn’t come back. I’d left while she was asleep. All morning she’d been telling herself I’d be back, that I’d just gone hunting, but personal fears had overcome the logic. Fear had assured her that I’d abandoned her, that I was gone for good. The truth is I’m just not used to living with people. It didn’t even occur to me to tell her where I was going.
“I know you hate me, Tristan, but please, please, don’t leave me again,” she says.
“I … I don’t,” I try to explain, but she doesn’t believe me. It’s more than that though. Her injuries have made her entirely dependent on me. She has no chance of gathering enough food or water to survive on her own. Her body is mostly intact, but she can barely endure significant movement. If something happened to me, what would she do? Hobble around in the desert until she laid down to die. The responsibility is unnerving. Do I really want someone else’s life in my hands? No. That’s a terrible idea.
I have no plans to leave, but I can tell the idea stays on her mind.
Echo isn’t nearly as excited about the wheelbarrow as me. She just smiles vaguely, joylessly, and says it’s good. Then she says something about Haven–she’s still hoping to get there. I don’t step on her dreams this time. I keep my tongue.
We’re starving, so I cook up the meat. By the time we’re done eating, the world is already moving toward dusk. Still, I’d rather get somewhere than nowhere, so I load up the pack. There’s a chill in the air, but our clothes are mostly dry now, so we retrieve them and dress. Echo has been wearing the blanket all day. She hands it to me to put away and I again become highly conscious of her nudity. My face feels hot. A vein pulses in my throat. Not only that but she needs me to help her dress, because she can’t put weight on her left calf and bending puts more pressure on the damaged nerve in her shoulder. I say nothing, but I’m smothered by unrecognized desire.
Afterward, I help her climb into the wheelbarrow. We set off down Big Road. There’s a tight pinch in my left bicep. I try to rearrange the weight in different ways. It only partially helps. Still, if we’re going to travel, I’ll have to deal with it.
I worry Cabal will come back, but I’m guessing he’s busy with the army just now … unless he deserts. Does he want us that bad? I wish I knew.
I caught a deserter once, I remember him saying.
We listen for the whine of a solar cycle at our rear, simultaneously watching for more traps ahead. Every new boulder gives us pause. I stop frequently to scan the terrain with my spyglass. We’re constantly finding new mines, despite the fact that there aren’t any.
It’s at least an hour past dusk when we stop. The moon is out, bathing the land with its pale white effulgence. My arms ache. The wheelbarrow seems more a means of torture than liberation now. But it’s gotten us this far. Aside from occasional sounds of pain, Echo has been very quiet.
We camp off the road, under the open stars.
I’m lying half-asleep when I become aware of Echo’s eyes on me. She’s close, with one arm over me, and when I turn my head, she’s awake and staring. My mind is empty, and the beauty in her moonlit face shines with unrivaled clarity. There’s a crispness to the vision that’s almost otherworldly.
With her eyes on me, her hand moves slowly. She tries to avoid wincing but can’t entirely succeed. I’m astonished and at the same time unsurprised to feel that hand inching under my shirt, caressing my stomach, exploring. I swallow hard. There’s a flutter in my stomach. Still, the movement pains her because it’s her left arm, connected to the muscles in the injured shoulder, and the hand comes to rest, scratching lightly at my skin.
“You can do what you want to me …” she says quietly. Her eyes are intense, unreadable. I stare stupidly. Is this happening?
“You can do what you want,” she says again, and the air is still, the night silent. With a painful effort, she shifts. She slides her body onto mine. She’s a weight pressing on my chest as I inhale.
“Do what you want, Tristan. Please,” she whispers.
The slow movement of her pelvis grinding against mine is both glorious and unmistakable, yet something is wrong here. It’s in her eyes. I know she’s still in pain–she’s almost tearing up–which calls her motives into question. My sudden confusion destroys any growing lust. Something about the “please” bothers me; some fear lies behind it. She’s desperate for me to take her, to use her, but not out of any real physical need …
And then I realize: she’s afraid I’ll leave her.
This is the coin she offers. This is her value. Does she think I’d just abandon her to die if she doesn’t? That I’d walk off and let my oldest living friend starve in the wasted world? Isn’t she Annabel Lee, the girl who waits in the desert, and didn’t I give her that heart-shaped necklace which even now dangles between us?
Rage accompanies the revelation–how little she must think of me. And I almost mistook her feelings for genuine desire. I grip her arm, though she squeals in pain, and thrust her to the side, sitting up. She’s staring at me, fearful and astonished, when I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Is that what you said to Ballard?”
She draws back, stricken. Her fear turns to hurt. But I’m angry still, and I’m not done wounding her. My next question is quiet, almost intimate.
“What about Cabal? Him too?”
Her jaw quivers. Her eyes glaze over. I’ve said something terrible, something forbidden, even if I don’t fully understand it. I sensed her weakness, I forged a dagger out of words, and her f
ace is exactly as it would be if I’d actually jabbed it into her heart. She bursts into tears.
I’ve broken her. She makes a sound almost like high-pitched words, but I can’t understand a single one. My anger melts, yet I refuse to let it go, because if I do it will slip toward shame. This was her fault. She did this. She deserves it, I tell myself. Beneath this is a secret fear that I’ve gone too far, that I’ve driven her permanently away, that she’ll shield herself always now. But so what if that’s true? I’ve been alone before. I don’t need her.
I stand and move away, looking off into the night, and she just sobs like a broken thing.
Chapter 8.
The next morning, there’s an abundance of silence.
Echo doesn’t speak to me. She avoids looking at me. If she did this through anger, I could understand. But it’s worse than that. Something is broken inside. She gazes into the dust. I don’t want to talk anyway. I’ve had a lot of practice avoiding things these past few years, so I’m fine with the whole silence thing.
At first, anyway.
Slowly, the tension mounts. It mounts over breakfast. It mounts on the road. It’s hard not to interact with someone when you’re the only two people in a hundred miles, especially when one of you is pushing the other in a wheelbarrow. The silence grows over time, seeping in and smothering everything else. Hunting and gathering doesn’t help. Eating doesn’t help. Any little sound only enhances what isn’t being said. The tension insists upon itself. But still I shut it down, bury it, adhering to an old theory: ignore it and it will go away.
