by Jordan Rivet
“He’s kind of unpleasant,” Esther said. “If he’s as rude to everyone else as he was to me, I can’t imagine he’s making too many friends. Why were you even friends with him?”
David was silent for moment. “It’s hard to explain. I was a teenager when I met Boris. He was older than me, and he was already working on a ship’s crew. He was just . . . cool. You never seem to care what people think of you, Esther, but I wasn’t like that, especially back then. I wanted to be as cool and uncaring as he was.”
“But if you didn’t even like him that much . . .”
“Oh, I liked him. He had a certain charisma, and he was very ambitious. I spent a long time trying to be more like him. He liked to rib me a bit, but I put up with his digs because it meant he thought I was worth paying attention to.”
“But you’re not a teenager anymore,” Esther said.
“No, I’m not, but it took a long time for those feelings to go away.”
David looked up at where Cally and Cody were still laughing together. Cody stood a little straighter around her, looking a little less like the baby-faced sailor Esther had first met amongst the Harvesters. Maybe Dax was right after all. Cally was definitely being friendly toward him, but then she was nice to everyone.
“Boris was my friend.” David adjusted his glasses and met Esther’s eyes. “We had some good times together, but he also broke a promise he made to me, and in the end I think he enjoyed holding me down. It took me a long time to realize the man I had admired could be so petty. The one thing he hated more than anything else was a threat to his position. Why do you think he hates you so much?”
“What?”
“Your tech,” David said. “It’s huge. It’s changing everything about the way we live at sea. The Galaxy captains are keeping it from their people because they’re terrified it will break their hold on their little kingdoms when people can move around freely. Boris knows it’s all your fault.”
“And what do you think?”
David grinned. “I am salting proud of you, Esther.”
She scooted a little closer and took David’s hand. This, at least, was simple.
“So what was the promise?” she asked. “The one Boris broke.”
Sweat trailed down David’s face and disappeared at the neck of his T-shirt. He watched the green riverbank sliding past them.
“This,” he said. “He promised to take me on his next expedition to land. He used to sail the Lucinda to the Hawaiian Islands to gather soil and plants for the gardening ship. It made him a hero at the Galaxy. All I ever wanted was to go with him, but he always had an excuse for why I couldn’t come.”
“Is it what you hoped it would be?” Esther pulled her knees up to her chest and wiped her forehead. Why was it so rusting hot?
David’s mouth lifted in a rueful half smile. “No matter how many times I told myself that not many people had survived, I still pictured us sailing into Manhattan with the skyscrapers rising around us and a whole crowd waiting to greet us.”
The trees on the riverbank hung branches out over the water. The Lucinda passed beneath one of them, and the shadow swept over David’s face.
“At least we’re on land, sort of,” Esther said.
“Yes. I’d like to explore, though, get my feet on solid ground for a bit longer.”
“The river hasn’t been blocked since that first wreck. Lucinda might make it all the way after all.”
“Let’s hope so.” David smiled. Esther remembered when that smile had been a smirk. He looked content now, despite the sweat running down his face and the alien landscape passing them by. Yes, this was simpler. David and Esther stayed where they were, drinking in the sights of the land around them, as they sailed onward.
The river voyage soon became monotonous. The banks curved around, looping back and forth across the landscape, but didn’t change much. They crept further inland, stopping each night. The shores pressed in around them, full of strange noises and hints of living things. It grew warmer by day. Esther found herself getting tired more quickly than she used to, as if the land-bound air were heavier than that at sea.
She missed the familiar rhythm of the ship on the ocean. The constant forward motion of the river made her feel queasy. She couldn’t wait to reach the lake, where they’d be back on wide-open water. And she wanted to walk on land again, maybe even take off her shoes and feel mud between her toes.
Chapter 15—Bridge Town
THREE DAYS AFTER THEY left the sea behind, Isadora tapped her finger on a point on the map Emilio had given them. A large circle had been drawn on one shore and a smaller one on the opposite side, with a line directly across the river.
“Ixcuintla,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” David said. He had been discussing the instruments on the dash with Luke while Esther and Zoe tried to get a call through to Neal. It had been harder to reach him the further inland they got. The connections were fuzzy and unreliable.
“Ixcuintla,” Isadora repeated. “Ciudad de los Muertos.”
“I think muertos means dead,” Esther said, remembering the names scrawled on the wrecked cargo ship. She looked closer at the map.
“What’s this line crossing the river?”
Zoe leaned over to look too. “Think it’s a dead point? Like you can’t pass beyond it?”
“Maybe it’s a place where some of their people died,” Luke said.
Isadora frowned and pointed at the map and then up at the horizon. The river bent around before them, so they couldn’t see too far ahead.
“Ciudad,” she said, tapping the big circle on the map, then gesturing upriver. “Puente.” She traced the line again.
The intercom crackled. Anita was on duty up in the lookout tower.
“Crow’s nest to bridge,” she said. “Guys, I . . . I see a city!”
“Ciudad!” David exclaimed. “I knew I’d heard that word before. It means city!”
“Nice one!” Zoe said.
“Emilio didn’t say anything about a city,” Esther said.
David picked up the intercom. “Can you see any people, Anita?”
“Not yet, Captain. Looks pretty quiet.”
“What do you think?” He rubbed his hands together, smiling broadly. “Shall we have a look?”
“Um, Hawthorne,” Luke said, “wouldn’t Ciudad de los Muertos mean City of the Dead?”
Isadora reached out and gripped Luke’s arm. “Ciudad de los Muertos,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Ixcuintla.”
“Ah,” David said. “Good point. Let’s proceed with caution, shall we?”
They sailed further up the river. Isadora didn’t try to stop them from approaching the city. They hoped it would be safe to pass, no matter what “City of the Dead” implied.
They rounded another bend, and there it was, growing on the hilltop like a crust of barnacles. It wasn’t very big, perhaps more of a town than a city. Buildings peeked out from amongst the trees and scrub. Antennas spiked up at odd angles. The houses were light-pastel colors but obviously hadn’t been painted in decades. The whites and pinks and yellows flaked off the walls, exposing the concrete and stucco beneath.
Esther didn’t know much about cities, but this one didn’t look like it had ever been impressive. Most of the buildings visible from the river were a single story tall. The one exception, located right at the center of town, was a structure with a tall tower made of tiers. The top tier had a pale-blue dome with a jagged stump on top of it like a broken spire. Next to it rose a slightly shorter but much larger domed roof that was the soft yellow of morning sunlight. Esther was pretty sure it was some sort of church.
The church building looked mostly intact, but she couldn’t say the same about the ones around it. Burnt shells of houses scattered across the hilltop. A fire had raged on one side, scorching almost all the way down to the river. As they drew closer, they could see a few burned-out cars, some lying partway in the shallows of the river.
There was no movem
ent at all. It did look like a city of the dead.
As the Lucinda neared, they figured out what puente meant too.
“It’s a bridge,” Esther said. She leaned forward over the helm, feeling the warm breeze hissing through the bullet holes in the windscreen. “Or at least it used to be.”
Concrete pillars rose on either side of the river. Between them a broken roadway creaked downward into the water. It looked like someone had held up a flat stretch of graying cloth and brought their hands together until the middle section dipped beneath the surface of the river. The murky brown waters obscured the broken middle of the bridge, making it unclear how deep the river was here.
“I don’t know if the Lucinda can get over that,” Luke said.
“We better send a boat forward to check the depth,” David said. “And while we’re at it, I want to explore the city.”
“Are you sure we should take a detour?” Esther asked. Ever since Emilio had mentioned that the Lake People had been known to kill each other, she had become increasingly worried about wasting any time on their way there. Her sister had been with them for long enough.
“Yeah, City of the Dead isn’t exactly a glowing recommendation,” Zoe said. She pulled the headset halfway off her ear. She’d been scanning the radio waves for any signs of life as they approached Ixcuintla, but there were none so far.
“Let’s not forget that the first objective of this mission is to explore the conditions on land,” David said. “I’d say that includes the biggest town we’ve seen yet. It won’t take long. Let’s gather a team.”
First they sent the little four-person motorboat over to check the depth where the bridge had collapsed into the river. If it was deep enough, they’d take the Lucinda over to the other side. Meanwhile, the crew prepared the main raft to send a scouting team into the city.
In addition to himself, David chose Esther, Luke, Ike Newton, Sarita, Wade, Jackson, and Anita for the exploration team. Wade and Sarita distributed guns to everyone. Esther took only a small handgun and tucked it into her belt. She’d feel better about fighting with her wrench if it came down to it.
“Let’s avoid firing those if possible,” David said to Wade as they finished handing out the ordnance. “We’re here to make friends, if there’s anyone living here.”
“Sure thing.”
“Okay. Stay sharp everyone.”
They launched the large inflatable raft and glided slowly over to the shore, picking their way through the drowned cars. They eased over a sunken dingy to tie up at a sloping dock made of weathered wood.
They crossed the dock to the shore, careful to avoid the gaps in the wood. Bushes and mangled trees lined the waterfront. The road leading to the sunken bridge was further upriver, but they found a smaller one climbing directly into the city. David left Jackson to guard the raft and led the way toward the buildings.
The road, now overgrown with scrub, didn’t look like it had been well paved to begin with. A mix of hard-packed pathways and broader avenues covered in cracked asphalt led off from it occasionally. The streets were very quiet. The persistent smell of dust and old char filled the air. They didn’t see so much as a feral cat as they climbed the hillside.
Esther held her wrench tight and scanned the ramshackle buildings and burned-out cars. They passed a low, wide structure that could have been a grocery store or market of some kind. The roof had caved in, swaying low in the middle of the darkened shop.
There was a flicker. Esther froze. Movement. She was sure of it.
She hissed at the team to stop and slowly approached the structure. Broken windows revealed rows of vacant tables and shelves inside. Foil and plastic packets lay scattered across the floor, emptied of their contents. Esther’s heart thudded loud and quick. She breathed. All was still.
There it was again! A flash of motion. A scuttling sound. The wrench grew warm in Esther’s palm.
Her boot brushed against a small stone on the ground. She picked it up and rubbed the flat edge. It must have been part of a brick or a piece of tile. She chucked the stone into the building.
A burst of movement. Swirls of black and tan. Something hit Esther’s face. She stumbled backwards, swiping at the air with her wrench. She wouldn’t go down without a fight!
“Easy.” David stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “It was just a bird.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, several birds. I almost had a heart attack. You okay?”
“Yeah, let’s keep moving,” Esther said, her cheeks warming. “I don’t think there are any people here, though.”
“You may be right.”
They continued their slow exploration of the town. Apart from a bird here and there, nothing moved.
“This is damned spooky,” Wade said after a while.
Luke chuckled. “It’s just a bunch of abandoned buildings,” he said. “Don’t be so nervous.”
“What’s that thing?” Ike asked. He jogged ahead of the group and led them up another slope of the hill. At the top they stepped out onto a wide square. It was paved, though tough grasses grew thick between the stones. At its center was an open-air octagonal structure with an ornate green roof. Several steps led up to its center.
“It’s some sort of gazebo,” David said.
“Gazebo? What’s that?” Ike asked.
“It’s like a shelter. I don’t really know what they’re for. Weddings, picnics, string quartet performances, I guess.”
“Whatever,” Ike said. “Can I go up there, Cap?”
“Just be careful.”
Ike darted toward the steps, crossing the broad square. The others followed more slowly. The church building with the tower and dome they’d seen from the boat loomed at the far end of the square, beyond the gazebo. It looked mostly intact, even from up close. Soft sunlight cast hazy shadows from the tiers of the tower. A huge pair of doors yawned open at its center.
They crossed the pavement toward the church. Esther scanned their surroundings as they walked, nervous about being exposed. The buildings around the square were nicer than the ramshackle homes in most of the town. They were made of stone or plaster rather than wood, and painted tiles appeared on a few of them. Many of these were broken, delicate reminders of a lost world.
They were halfway to the church steps when Ike screamed.
They whirled around, raising their weapons. Wade and Sarita crouched low, preparing to fire. David and Esther stepped closer to each other and turned, putting their backs together without speaking. Esther raised her wrench and put one hand on the gun in her belt.
“Bodies!” Ike nearly fell down the steps of the gazebo. “Bodies!” he screamed again.
His face was flushed when he reached them. He bent down with his hands on his knees and wretched on the cobblestones.
Sarita’s mouth twisted. “Were they fresh?”
“No,” Ike wheezed. “Skeletons.”
“Don’t scare us like that, kid.” Wade raised his gun up onto his shoulder. “Just a bag of bones. Surprised we haven’t seen ’em sooner.”
“How many are there?” David asked.
“Lots. I don’t know.” Ike looked back at the gazebo as if he expected the skeletons to chase him. “They were arranged in a circle, almost like they planned it.”
“Or someone else did,” Esther said darkly. She scanned the square, but it looked just as deserted as it had from the beginning.
“Can we go back to the ship soon, guys?” Luke said. He hadn’t lowered his gun. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here.”
“We have to see the church,” Anita whispered.
David hesitated. Anita looked at him solemnly.
“Okay,” he said. “But be careful. We don’t want the whole thing to come down on our heads.”
“Wait a second,” Esther said. Her eyes had just fallen on something waiting for them in the shadow of the church building.
It was a great big truck. She started toward it, drawn like a f
ish to a lure.
“Think you can get it working?”
“Depends,” Esther said.
She kept her wrench out as she approached the vehicle. It was large, with a wide flatbed and a monstrous cabin. A layer of dust muted the chrome surfaces. She reached for the cabin door. It wasn’t locked. The hinges creaked as she pulled it open. The cabin was empty. Esther let out a breath. She hadn’t particularly wanted to pull a skeleton out of the truck before she got to work.
There was no skeleton, but there was a key sitting right on the disintegrating seat. It must be Esther’s lucky day. She hoisted herself into the truck. The others gathered around, still watching the empty square. Ike looked a little green in the face, but he stood straight. The kid wasn’t too bad.
Esther had never driven a car before, but her dad had let her start his Mazda when she was a kid. She loved the way the engine sparked to life at the turn of the key. It was a tactile experience, one of the first things that had inspired her love of engines and machines. She had even crawled around on the garage floor, helping her father fix the car whenever it broke down, which had happened frequently, if she remembered correctly. Those had been happy times.
Esther put the key in the ignition of the big truck and turned it. The engine sputtered. Then nothing. She tried again. Sput sput sput. Nothing again. She tried a third time. Still the engine failed to ignite. She climbed back out of the cab and went to inspect the fuel tank. It was bone dry, as she’d suspected. The important thing, though, was that it sounded like there was enough battery left in the thing for the spark plugs to work. That meant it had been driven relatively recently too.
She opened the hood and tinkered around in the engine, fiddling with the connections and looking for rust and corrosion. It had been a long time since she had seen a car engine, and of course she hadn’t really known what she was doing back then, but she had enough experience with engines in general to be able to assess the condition of this one. As long as they had fuel, there was a decent chance the thing would run. The biodiesel they made out of algae on the Lucinda wouldn’t be a perfect solution, but it just might work.
