Devastated Lands: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Page 9

  In the sepulchral evening, the windy silence, she felt like they were the last humans left in the valley. She'd make her way slowly along the short tine of that fork, then try to hook around onto the highway again. She thought the car was up to it.

  The headlights stabbed into the gnarled debris; she walked in front of them back to the idling car.

  ###

  The guy with the tattooed head kicked the feet supports out from under him, and Cooper was left hanging again by the rope. He grunted as his body jerked down on his arms and shoulder sockets, the rope biting into his wrists. The peon had a set of bandages across his nose; his voice came out muffled.

  "I ought to kill you right now for what you did to my nose. Fuckin' sucker punch head-butt." He sipped something from a Styrofoam cup and talked into the night. "Gladys wouldn't let me though. So I guess you're a lucky fuck. You won't be too good in the morning anyways, if you're still alive. I'm just going to leave you twisting in the wind, buddy."

  At the end of an alley, connected to the courtyard, Cooper had sensed what he thought were headlights flash across the dark sky, then click off. Now in the darkness, he saw the awkward amorphous form of the idiot wander behind him, so he couldn't see him anymore. They were alone out there.

  Then he heard a struggle, like two people grappling but trying not to make any noise.

  ###

  There was a move that she would never use in a bonafide MMA match because it cuts the blood off instantly to the brain. It's called a blood choke. She had no such qualms here.

  When she got to the end of the alleyway, a lone bulb weakly lit the courtyard. She saw a man hanging from a pole by his arms. It was dark, but he had Cooper's hair. She halted for a minute, sizing up the situation. A building full of people, captives and bad ones, but only one guard. She saw an oaf sitting on the ground; he stood up and ambled sleepily closer to Cooper. His back to her.

  She felt for the gun, and the Swiss knife. She might need both, she thought. But she wanted silence.

  When she hit him from behind she had both forearms locked around his carotid artery, powered by muscular shoulders. She wrapped her legs from behind around the chubby guy's waste. The blood choke, it was like pushing a button. With nothing going to the brain, he flopped over like a sack of potatoes, lights out.

  Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea back in the gym, when her mentor Vincent taught her a few "no holds barred" quasi-legal moves. She took out the knife, Cooper's, and unsheathed it.

  "Shane, baby, it's me. You okay?" She moved the wooden stump over to where he was hanging, and clamored on top of it. She went to work on a frenzied cutting of the rope. It only took a minute for the sharp knife to sever the cord. He dropped down onto the rough ground and composed himself for about 25 seconds. He felt like crap; everywhere a pulsating bruise.

  "I'm okay. I can't believe it's you!" he said in a hoarse whisper. He felt around his sore shoulders. At least his arms were still in their sockets. "Where are the others?"

  "In the car."

  His shirt had been hurled to the side; he found it and pulled it roughly over his sweaty torso. The building was still quiet, until they noticed Cooper's guard complaining bitterly as he staggered to his feet. He stood, a hulking presence in the low light, like Frankenstein.

  "I'm gonna tear your fuckin' head off," he mumbled when he saw Mikaela, but couldn't finish the sentence before she spun and side-kicked him smack in the testicles. Groaning, he bent forward like a pretzel, holding onto his abs. He was on the ground for good, face first, out cold, when she followed through with a solid right to the face, further rearranging it around the existing bandage.

  "I almost feel sorry for him," Cooper whispered. "Wait here!"

  He sprinted to the building's exit, where the previous guard told him he'd prop the door open. He'd promised, if Cooper would take him out of there. Cooper found the door open a crack, ran in and down the hallway, stealthily through one of the doors, until he located the crossbow. It was still in a pile of random belongings where he'd seen it before. Hallelujah, he thought. The quiver was still two-thirds armed. They weren't too smart around there. The only business left was Beatrice.

  He ran down the hall, away from the exit door, looked around the corner; nothing. Then he heard a commotion. He noticed Mikaela at the exit door to the building, waving at him frantically.

  There was the guy who'd given him water, the first guard, coming through another distant door, too loudly, gripping Beatrice by the arm.

  CHAPTER 25

  A man, ghoulishly painted white in the half darkness, came bursting through the door behind them. He grabbed the guard first by the collar, spun him around, and they tussled. Beatrice broke free and took long, confusing strides, until Cooper grabbed her hand.

  "Beatrice it's Coop! Run!" Holding hands, they sprinted down the hallway toward Mikaela. She held the door open for them.

  Cooper saw the handgun in Mikaela's hand, extended down by her thigh. He took one look behind him and saw the white-faced pursuer break free. The man had a handgun stuffed into the back of his trousers; he reached behind and yanked it free. Thoughts raced through Cooper's mind: he didn't want them to be shot, but neither did he want this sleeping complex to wake up and come down on them.

  He saw Mikaela push the door open wider and gesture wildly with the hand holding the handgun to go faster. "Go, go, go!" she cried. "We have to get out of here! We have to get back to the car, and Amy!" Then a shot rang out and echoed in the hallway.

  ###

  Turk's panting breath clouded up the window. He stood on the backseat tensed on four legs. He hadn't moved since Mikaela had run off in that direction. Once in a while, he'd give a short, puffy bark, and paw at the seat like a penned animal coiled to flee.

  "Where are you?" Amy said to herself, sitting on her hands in the backseat. "It's taking too long! She said she was just going to get food! So where is she? What if Mikaela doesn't come back Turk? What if it's just me and you?" Mikaela hadn't told her what to do. Amy was too scared to sleep. It was pitch black outside, since Mikaela had shut off the headlights.

  Amy reached over, took the flashlight, and fiddled with it. It clicked on, and the powerful beam reflected back at her from the window, like something else she wanted to run away from. That was enough; she unlatched the passenger door. Amy darted outside into the night, right behind Turk's leaping body. The flashlight beam stabbed around into the night until it hit the tree-tops, and the gutter of a building.

  She heard a pop in the distance; men's busy, alert voices. She faced the walls of the windowless buildings with an alleyway between them. Behind her was the car, dark woods, and a road leading away. She couldn't believe Turk was running away from her. "Turk!" she cried out, breaking the gloomy silence around her. She aimed the flashlight at his form. "Come back here! Don't leave me!" She was scared, starved, tired, sad, all at once.

  Turk's black torso disappeared into the lightless alley. She couldn't believe that he would leave her all alone! All she could do is follow him, calling out, quietly whimpering. She ran in her little sneakers and dress along the gravelly ground gripping Millie in her right hand, which she didn't even know she was doing. "Turk!"

  It took everything she had to go into the alley. Everyone was always leaving her! Getting dead. Or running away, too fast for her to catch.

  Almost right away when she got to the end of the alley, she heard barking, snarling dogs. Some of the sounds she recognized as Turk's. Two shadows ran toward her. Growling and fighting and snapping commenced; she turned and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER 26

  Some guy in an adjoining room heard the gunshot in the hallway. He had two German Shepherds with him; when he got outside, with a t-shirt and unbuckled jeans, he saw the empty rope, two people running in the courtyard, and a dog. "G'on now! Go boys," he yelled at the two dogs, snapping on an outdoor lamp. They took off.

  Cooper and Mikaela, both frazzled with a
drenaline, part led, part dragged Beatrice toward the alley. She screamed at them, "Leave me!" but they ignored her. Then Cooper heard the dogfight behind him.

  Turk had met one of the dogs in mid-air; they collapsed into the dirt in a whirl of flying fur, bared teeth, spit, and claws. The third dog joined in. "Keep going!" Cooper yelled back to Mikaela, who had Beatrice's sweaty hand. "Give me the gun!"

  He strode up to the fighting dogs, aimed, and almost surgically, shot once, twice, and that was it for the ammo. Turk rolled off from the second dying dog, then got up, hind legs first. Shaky, and bleeding. "You okay boy? C'mon!" Cooper still gripped the crossbow in his left hand. The guy who'd set the dogs on them buckled up his pants and stomped across the courtyard in the pale light.

  Cooper expected him to pull a weapon, but he stopped at the two Shepherd bodies. He knelt down. Cooper and Turk trotted into the darkness of the alley; neither had much fight left in them.

  Mikaela led them to the car. She still had the keys on her. "Goddammit where's Amy?" she hissed into the night. "Amy! Where are you! Amy's not here!" Cooper expected Gladys' troops to be on top of them at any moment.

  "Turk, where's Amy?" Cooper asked, half expecting a rational answer. The dog's black coat gleamed with blood, sweat, slobber, and tensed muscle. He stood panting with the false grin of a battle-scarred mutt, slobber dripping off his jowls. Cooper tossed the gun onto the backseat. He felt crappy about the two Shepherds, but it couldn't have been helped. There was no way he had ever shot a dog before, or would have under any other circumstance. He urged Turk into the backseat; this time the dog, like a spent fighter, climbed arthritically and fell willingly onto the backseat cushions. He curled up and sighed.

  Cooper backed out of the car and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Amy! Where the hell could she have gone? Hey Amy!" Mikaela had all but stuffed Beatrice into the front passenger seat, then got into the driver's side herself.

  "Poor girl!" Beatrice said. "To be so young and a part of this! She must have wandered off a ways!"

  Mikaela started up the car. "There's no way we're leaving without her!"

  "Well, we gotta book out of here anyway, or we're all lost. Those morons will be down on top of us in no time. Let's head up the road, we'll look for her! Amy!" Cooper called out again. He leapt into the backseat and slammed the door; the car started moving.

  The black night was like a wall. You couldn't see past much of a car length. No lights were on anywhere, and it was all dark woods. Somewhere out there was the remains of the huge lahar. Going about half the speed Cooper thought they needed to, in order to put miles between themselves and Gladys, they stared out into the blackness looking for any sign of Amy–the beam of a flashlight, or headlights reflecting off a dress.

  He knew they couldn't go too far; they'd reach a kind of point of no return. If that happened, he'd have to declare her, in an unspoken way, lost. Essentially abandoned–but that would never happen, he told himself. They were all in this together; it had been that way since the beginning. Till death do us part.

  They went along the road and they'd all rolled their windows down and were calling out her name.

  "Could she have been snatched by one of the painted goons back there?" Cooper speculated, over the backseat. Sleepless, and half-beaten, he felt like he was operating solely on high-test fumes. "While we were all preoccupied or tied-up? Maybe they took her; they have her back where we just came from." God forbid, he thought.

  "No," Mikaela said. She seemed sure of herself; she gave off a vengeful, determined optimism. "Turk wouldn't have allowed it, or he would have followed them after they took her. They would have then shot him, and taken her. But Turk's still here. She's just wandered off, that's all. Dammit, she has this way of wandering off all the time!" Mikaela seemed choked up.

  "The poor girl is just scared!" Beatrice agreed. "I don't blame her one bit!"

  Turk had been licking his wounds, curled up in the back. Then he jumped up onto his hind legs all of a sudden, propped himself on the door with his front paws, and barked out the half-open window. Mikaela hit the brakes. Only trees swaying in the weirdly warm darkness, and a rushing sound; water.

  The noise was like a river over rocks.

  CHAPTER 27

  Mikaela killed the headlights. She was out of the car in an instant. Turk barked two more times, in recognition, at the woods.

  Cooper opened his door, stiffly exited, and stood by the side of the road with his crossbow. He was aware that they had pistols, with no ammo. They'd hardly gone a mile, maybe a mile and a quarter. He expected his captors to come barreling down the road at any second.

  "Go find her Turk," he said. "Go find Amy. You smelled something. Go ahead boy!" The dog panted heavily, then barked in a way that was more like a release of air from the back of his throat. It was like an answer to the man's request. His brow furrowed; he stared into the dark trees, which hid the rushing water.

  "Go on," Cooper said. "We're right behind you."

  "Stay with the car!" Mikaela barked at him, over her shoulder.

  "Why?"

  "We need it! I can do this myself! Stay with the car!" She was getting increasingly hard to say no to, Cooper thought. With her fierce will, which only stiffened with the direness of the consequences. Turk ran into the woods, like it was part of a game.

  "Alright alright go!" he said, waving an arm.

  Mikaela strode into the woods. They could only see Turk's tail; they won't lose him though, Cooper thought. He comes when you call. He looked at Beatrice skeptically, then back at the fleeing Mikaela.

  "Don't be long!" he called out after her. "Be careful!"

  A crashing of underbrush, then dog and woman slipped into the darkness. Only the breezy noise of white water came from the woods. Finally, a light clicked on way back in it. A flashlight. The dot of light danced around, then it disappeared, too.

  "We should go with them; I don't trust this. It feels like everyone's split up now, again. I don't like it–not one bit," he began to pace, full of misgivings and exhausted indecision. "I can't just wait in the car. That's not going to work. These crazies are coming, we're going to have to step on it, then that'll leave three not one of the others in the woods for good." He felt a crazed energy, that high-test he ran on. His legs wanted to fidget and run. He went back into the car to fetch his backpack and things.

  It reminded him of a journalist's photo after an aerial bombing; dolls in the rubble. Tom lay on the backseat; he snatched the doll and stuffed it into his backpack.

  Beatrice got out of the car. A warm wind blew over the road, carrying either dust, ash, or both. The road was still dark, but he expected to see headlights coming at them, at any moment. "A large river, rapids…it's close," Beatrice said. "I hope Amy is alright. Where is the poor girl?"

  "It could be the Puyallup River, or some smaller creek I don't know anything about. Let's go!"

  "I'll stay…"

  "No. You have to come too." It'd be a death sentence for her, if he left. He had a sneaking suspicion they may not make it back to the car.

  ###

  It looked like run-off, a creek spontaneously formed. Turk stood next to it and barked, as if talking to it. A cool spray rose up smelling of sulfur and hard minerals. It cascaded down out of a jumble of rocks that climbed on the other side. Yet, not 15 feet away, Mikaela spotted a narrow torrent of the run-off emerging from an opening, as if it had already sculpted a hole through the rocks. This opening was topped by a natural bridge. She leapt up on it and scrambled across, hand over hand. She called Turk over the bridge. After a bit of hesitation, he came dutifully.

  Once on the other side of the water, Turk picked up a scent and took off. She climbed up in pursuit of him. They were clamoring over debris, recently deposited. It was scrambling in the grainy light, one hand gripping a flashlight, the beam reflecting back an ugly sheen. The rocks were wet with moist sand, a kind of slime. They made for awkward footing, and she was breathless, combined with all the o
ther exertions, when they reached the top.

  Turk's black form was more distinct now. He went over the crest. She clicked off the flashlight. "Amy!" she cried, dryly. "Amy, are you there? Amy? Where are you!" She began to cry silently, in a way that snuck up behind her. It was dredging up memories of Missy, a hollow, ageless, desperate longing, mixed with extreme fatigue. No amount of MMA training could prepare for this; beating up a 200-pound man, racing through the woods, going to the mat, emotionally.

  Tears streaked down her cheeks. She wiped them off and put her hands on her hips.

  "Jesus Christ," she declared out loud. She winced and said, "Where could that girl have gone?" She had a horrifying thought that they'd missed her driving that mile back there; they'd gone completely past her somewhere in the woods. She thought if she lost Amy, she'd sit down in the rocks with her head in her hands and never move again. Just die.

  Then the sun came up. A fiery crack appeared in the sky near the decapitated Mount Rainier. An orange halo around the fuming peak. Beautiful and holy in its own right. Vectors of sunlight crept across the rough terrain. They spread quickly, like a flowing tide.

  Turk stood stock still, the black fur, crusted with dried blood, riffled in the breeze. He had a noble profile; she depended on him, like never before. He panted, then when he savored the scents in the wind, he stopped panting; his mouth firmed. He didn't blink.

  She didn't know where to go. "What about it Turk?"

  He looked over his shoulder in the other direction. Then she heard, "Mikaela!" It was Cooper, with his backpack and stuff, a short distance away. Coming up behind over the same route.

  "I thought I told you…what about the car?" The words came out mumbled, he couldn't have heard them. It seemed, as of now, a non-issue. They were together. Then as the light bloomed and shifted around them, the terrain's features were revealed.

  She saw a lone house in the distance.