Instinct (24 page)

“Who’s trying to escape? I was doing chores and I stepped away to heed nature’s call.”

Luke walked closer before he spoke again. He stopped about ten paces from her. Ten quick strides downhill and he would be close enough to grab her.
 

“We prefer that everyone use the latrine. We want to keep our area clean.”

“Besides,” she said, “even if I do decide to leave, you suggested I travel at night, but that’s not an order, right? If I decide to leave in the morning, you wouldn’t stop me, would you?”

“I’m going to escort you back to camp now so you can get some more rest. If you remember, you’ve been relieved of your chores for the moment. You’ve had a stressful couple of days.”

“I certainly appreciate your concern,” she said. She turned back downhill and began walking again.

“Judy,” he said. “Judy!”

She heard the frustration building in his voice. It could have been a snapping stick, but that clicking sound also might have been the snap on the holster he wore. Judy didn’t turn around to see. She was pretty close to her goal.

“I’m not going to ask again, Judy,” he said.

“That’s good,” she said over her shoulder. She didn’t turn to look at him. She needed him closer. “It will save us both trouble if you don’t bother to ask again. The answer is the same. I don’t want to be a part of your group, Tib.” She could almost feel his anger building.

“That’s not one of your choices,” he said.

“I’m fuzzy on my choices. Could you go over them one more time for me?”

She heard him exhale. He was getting closer.

“You can return to camp, or what’s left of you can end up in that manure pit.”

“Why are you giving me a choice at all?”

She heard him take the final steps to close the distance between them. She turned to see that he was within arm’s length. He was so focused on her, and whatever perceived threat she represented, that he had failed to fully take in his surroundings. This is what she had been counting on.

“We have a mission here, Judy. You’re a smart person, and we might need a person like you.”

“Smart? That’s what you’re looking for? Somehow I thought you might be looking for breeding-age females. I’ve got some bad news for you, Luke. I’d be willing to bet that there’s not a fertile person in your whole group. Think about it. You’ll see the pattern.”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“Me? You came out here all by yourself. Who’s the crazy one?”

“Judy,” he said with a smile. “You’re not going to make me use this, are you?” He pulled his gun halfway out of his holster and took a half-step back. She had seen him draw before. When they were on the road, he would sometimes put on quick draw demonstrations as entertainment. He could snatch that gun from the holster and shoot a tin can twenty paces away without even seeming to aim.

This wasn’t a demonstration, and Judy wasn’t a tin can.
 

“What are you smiling about?” Luke asked.

She wasn’t looking at him or his gun. She was looking just to the side of him, where a small tree grew. It was no more than three inches in diameter, and it looked like it would probably be choked out by the thick vines that grew up the trunk. Luke turned to follow Judy’s gaze. They both watched.
 

What seemed like a million years before, in a Denny’s where they had held a meeting of the survivors of the apocalypse, a man named Brad had described the phenomenon they were witnessing. He said it was like the “world’s slowest fireworks display,” if Judy remembered correctly. That was a pretty apt description.

As they watched, pink and purple flowers opened on the vine. They started at the tip, where the flowers were small, and moved down to the base of the tree. They alternated in color: pink, purple, pink, purple. As Luke’s eyes followed the opening flowers to the ground, Judy saws realization dawn on him. They were standing in a shallow river of the vines. They stretched up in a band from down the hill.

Luke tried to take a step backwards before he realized that the vines were already looped around his shoes, and tightening around his ankles. He fell on his ass and threw out his hands to catch his fall. As soon as they landed, they were tangled in the thickest vines. The coils wrapped around his wrists and began to find their way over his torso.

Just a couple of feet away, Judy stood unmolested by the plants.

Luke opened his mouth and his scream was cut off immediately by a vine that wrapped around his throat. His last expulsion of breath sounded like a faraway train whistle. Luke’s eyes bulged with the effort.
 

Judy stepped over Luke and began to walk back up the hill.

CHAPTER 15: LAKE ERIE, NEW YORK

T
IM
AND
C
EDRIC
WALKED
out of the little house rehydrated and resupplied. In a bag, Tim carried some food, water, and a laptop with half a charge. In his last tour of the house, Tim had taken the computer’s charger, in case they ever ran into another working generator on their travels.

Tim walked this time, and was careful to read every sign. He didn’t want to zone out again and miss the turn for the airport. When he saw it, he couldn’t imagine how he had ever missed it.

A giant blue sign read, “Westfield Aviation Flight School — Where Your Dreams Have Wings — .8 Miles.”

“What does that mean?” Tim asked Cedric. “Your dreams have wings? Does that make any sense to you?”

They turned down the road. Tim wasn’t surprised when the pavement ended and their road continued on as a combination of gravel and hard-packed dirt. Before the whole world ended, recreational aviation had already been dying. Where Tim learned to fly, a lot of the pilots who hung around were battling so many health problems that they had difficulty keeping their licenses. The glut of pilots from WWII were dying, and those were the last veterans who seemed to have nostalgia for the skies. People like Tim, who flew just because they enjoyed it, were few and far between. A modest flight school like this, in the middle of nowhere, was lucky they could afford to maintain their road at all.

Tim’s step quickened when he saw the hangar. It was a nice big building. There could be any number of planes in there. Cedric ran ahead.

Tim stopped to look across the runway. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared. He’d seen more than one overgrown grass runway, choked with weeds. He didn’t mind landing on them, but takeoffs were a tad frightening. This one had been well-maintained concrete and tarmac. Here and there, untended cracks allowed grass and weeds to poke through, but it was way better than Tim had any right to expect. He set down his bag and walked over to the door on the side of the hangar. It was locked, but the upper half was glass. He knocked it out with a rock and let himself in. It was clean, tidy, and nearly empty. Tim’s hope evaporated. Over a desk, a cabinet was marked, “Keys.” He swung open the door and saw hook after hook. They were empty. He saw one set of keys on the bottom row and he reached for them. They hung from a metal keyring in the shape of a peace sign.
 

Tim smiled. On one side, the metal was enameled with rainbow colors around the perimeter of the circle. He turned back to the hangar. It was nearly empty, but in the far corner an old parachute was draped over something. He walked halfway across to it before he allowed himself to believe his eyes. There was an airplane under that parachute.

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Cedric stayed on the ground and guarded the bag while Tim took the plane up for the first time. Once he had changed out the spark plugs, the plane seemed to run fine. But still, his breath had come in short gasps as he took the thing up for the first time. Once in the air, Tim settled down. He circled the airport a couple of times and brought the plane back down while Cedric was still being good. He didn’t want to worry about the dog in the middle of the runway as he tried to land, so he kept his time in the air short, while the dog was still guarding the bag.

He killed the engine and got out.

“I think we’re good!” he shouted. He opened his mouth wide and popped his ears, so he could hear again. Cedric was still sitting there, right next to the bag. “You ready to go?”

Cedric eased his way down until he was laying on the tarmac.

“Come on! Let’s go,” Tim said. He had a tilted, half-smile on his face. The dog’s behavior was confusing.

Cedric looked to the side of the hangar as the young man came around the corner. One of his arms was looped under the armpit of the young woman. It was the pair from Sunset Point. The girl wore the same dress, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty now. Tim’s eye was drawn down to where her right leg ended. The foot was tilted towards her other leg, at an odd angle.
 

Tim didn’t even notice the boy’s other hand until it swung upwards. The young man held a gun. He pointed it directly at Cedric.
 

Tim’s panic immediately shut down blood flow to his extremities. His hands and feet went numb and his blood ran cold with fear. His eyes automatically measured the distance. He had about ten paces to his best friend, Cedric. There were only about two paces between the dog and the unstable young man who was pointing a gun at him.

“Take it back,” the young man said.

“Whuh?” Tim tried to get enough lubrication in his mouth to make it work properly. “What?”

“You cursed Amy,” he said, nodding at the woman he was propping up.

Tim glanced at her eyes. There was a glassy calm there. Perhaps it was a drug-induced calm.

“What?” Tim asked.

“Say ‘what’ again!” the young man yelled. His thumb pulled back on the gun’s hammer. His eyes were blue steel, but the corners of the young man’s mouth were turned up, as if he were amused.

Tim spoke slowly. “I don’t know what you mean. Please don’t shoot him.”

“You cursed Amy Lynne. You said she would break her leg. When we jumped down from your airplane, she broke her leg. Take back your fucking curse.”

Tim shook his head. He couldn’t stop shaking his head as he replied. “Listen, I didn’t… I don’t have the ability to curse someone. I’m really sorry…”

The boy pulled the trigger.
 

Tim’s hands went to his eyes. He couldn’t look. He dropped to his knees. As the ringing in his ears began to fade, Tim hear the click of Cedric’s toenails. He opened his eyes to see the dog slinking towards him. His ears were back and his tail was curled up under himself, but he was moving. Tim took the dog into his arms. His hands searched the dog for a wound as he looked up to see the gun pointing right at him.

“The next bullet goes in the dog instead of the ground,” the young man said. “Now take back your curse.”

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Tim could barely control the words that were coming out of his own mouth. Panic was beginning to shut down his ability to form coherent thoughts.

“Listen,” he said. “Please.”

“Take it back.”

The girl moaned and then smiled she adjusted her leg and her foot swayed. Tim’s eyes moved back and forth between the end of the gun and the unnatural leg. They were running a close race for the most disturbing thing he’d ever seen.

He wanted to go back in time. If he’d only piled Cedric into the plane and taken off instead of doing that test run, they would be safely in the sky by now. The pair, with their gun and broken leg, would be watching as Tim and Cedric flew away.

“We don’t have all day,” the young man said. “I don’t have many more pills to give her. I think maybe I gave her too many.”

The gun dipped as the young man looked down at his companion. Her head flopped down on his shoulder.

“I can’t take back the curse,” Tim said. The gun came back up. The round circle at the end of the barrel was impossibly black, like it was a portal to deep space. “You see her leg. It’s already broken. You need to get her help.”

“So get her help then.” There was panic in the boy’s voice too. The end of the gun shook as he adjusted his grip on the girl.

“All I can think is that you need to find a doctor. Have you seen anyone else around besides me?”

“YOU made her break her leg and YOU NEED TO MAKE IT RIGHT!” the young man shouted. “I’ll just shoot you anyways. I’ve killed bigger people than you.”

“Okay, okay,” Tim said. He put up one hand defensively and kept the other wrapped around Cedric. An idea occurred to Tim. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, the very same idea had occurred to a boy several hundred miles east of him. The outcome of their ideas would draw them to the same place. “Listen. There’s a laptop in my bag there. On it, I’ve got instructions on how to treat a broken leg, okay? If you can read those instructions to me, I’ll be able to help, okay?”

The young man assessed Tim and then glanced at the bag. He seemed reticent to move.

“It’s the only way I can help,” Tim said.