Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 (5 page)

Maybe I shouldn’t trust her.

When she betrayed us, did she have a
choice?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And
the more I think about it, the more I think she was just doing what she had to
do to survive. And I can’t blame her for that. And to her credit, she did lead
us out of the residential sector. She did get us to the last Vehicle Access
Point. And then she got us above ground. She got us out of the Fortress.

“She wants to get home,” I say. “She wants
to see her sister again. And at the moment she’s the only one who can save us.
She’s the only one who can get us into that town. And if she’s not with us when
we get there, what do you think they’ll do? I mean, provided that we could
actually find the place without Sarah, what do you think they’ll do if we turn
up all bloodied and dying and starving? We’re strangers. We have no trust. They
won’t let us in. They’ll probably shoot us on sight. Like it or not, we need
Sarah. She knows where this town is. And she knows the people. She will vouch
for us. She’s our ticket into that refuge. Into that safe haven. She’s our
ticket to get behind the walls. She’s the key.”

“What makes you so certain?” Kim asks.

“Certain of what?”

“What makes you so certain she’ll vouch for
us? Why would she? She’ll use us as protection. For safety in numbers. She’ll
use us to travel through the desert. And when we get there, who knows? She
could betray us again. She could double cross us.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” I say, even though
she’s perfectly capable of doing exactly that. Even though she’s already done
it.

“Just keep an eye on her,” Kim whispers.
“Don’t drop your guard. Not for a second.”

Kenji tells me to hurry up. Sarah is
already walking south, leading the way.

I tell Kim I’ll be vigilant. I tell her
I’ll keep my guard up at all times. I say, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be back
before you know it.”

I tell her that if everything goes to plan,
we’d be back in three days’ time. Four at the most.

If everything goes to plan, we’d have a car
or a truck, and most importantly, we’ll have found a new home.

As I turn away from Kim and catch up to
Kenji and Sarah, Maria and Jack are dragging the dead bodies out of the
wreckage of the chopper. And I try not to think about how this is the end of the
world and we are in a desert.

And out here, in the desert, in this new
world, nothing ever goes to plan.

We walk.

We walk for the rest of the day and all
through the night. We don’t stop. We can’t afford to.

My mind wanders. And now that it is night
time, I keep looking up at the stars. I know I should be focusing on where I’m
going, but I can’t help it. It’s been too long. And the stars are so bright in
the desert. You can see them all. Every single star in this part of the
universe. And as my mind wanders, I begin to make up stories about them, about
the constellations.

About gods and heroes. Myths and legends.

But then again, maybe I’m not making these
stories up. Maybe the stars are telling me their history. Maybe the stars are
speaking to me.

The sun rises over the eastern horizon and
I lower my head. I shield my eyes from the glaring light.

The temperature rises quickly. And Kenji
tells us to stop.

But not to rest.

He points ahead. There is another thing on
the horizon. A danger. A treasure. Water. Food. It’s a… truck. I think. It’s
hard to tell. My vision is blurry and unfocused.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think that’s the biggest truck I’ve ever
seen,” Kenji says.

“Road train,” Sarah explains.

“What?”

“It’s what they call a road train. It’s
basically just a big ass truck that pulls a lot of trailers. Usually three or
more. They’re only legal out here in the desert. Too big to drive them near
towns or cities.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s massive,” Kenji
says. “Could have supplies. I say we check it out.”

We move towards the big rig together. Kenji
leads the way. Sarah and I follow closely behind. This road train has five
massive trailers. It is parked on the side of a long and straight road. As we
get closer we can see that each trailer has claw marks down the side. And teeth
marks. From something big.

Most of the tires are flat. They appear to
have been slashed or shot out.

We move quickly around the truck. We check
the driver’s cabin first.

From the outside, it appears to be empty.

“Stay back,” Kenji says.

“Why?” I ask. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to check inside.”

“Make sure you check the rear of the
cabin,” Sarah says. “There’s usually a sleeping area in the back.”

“Sleeping area?” I ask.

“Yeah, so if the driver needs to, they can
pull over and take a nap. You never know, there could be some water bottles
back there.”

Kenji opens the passenger’s side door and
climbs up. He moves between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat,
disappearing momentarily into the sleeping quarters. And even though Kenji is
right there, even though he is only a few feet away, the fact that I can’t see
him makes me extremely uncomfortable. I suddenly feel very, very alone.

A few seconds pass. Seconds that feel like
hours.

“Kenji?”

No response.

I grip my gun tight. I flick the safety
off. I step up into the passenger’s side door. “Kenji!?”

There’s a curtain draped across the entry
from the driver’s cabin to the rear, where the sleeping area is. And Kenji is
nowhere to be seen. He has just disappeared.

“Kenji!?”

He sticks his head out of the curtain,
drawing it to the side. “There’s nothing back here.”

I take a deep, deep breath. I loosen my
grip on the rifle.

“Let’s check the trailers for supplies,” he
says.

We climb out of the driver’s cabin, or prime
mover, as Sarah calls it. It is a long step down. I nearly fall over. I ask
Sarah if Optimus Prime from the Transformers is called Prime, because of Prime
mover.

She raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, probably.”

Kenji waves us forward and we move towards
the fifth and final trailer. We have to force each lock open, and then swing
the doors open. Kenji climbs up first. Sarah and I follow. But the trailer is
completely empty.

All five trailers are empty.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Sarah
says.

“Yeah,” Kenji agrees. “Looks like someone
has already picked this clean.”

I nod my head. “Let’s keep moving. No point
sticking around here any longer. Unless we want to wait here until the sun
sets? We could take shelter in the sleeping quarters of the prime mover. That
way we can still keep an eye on things outside.”

“That might not be such a bad idea,” Sarah
says.

“How much water do we have left?” I ask.

Kenji ignores me. He holds his hand up,
telling me to be quiet. “Wait. I’m just going to check the driver’s cabin
again.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I didn’t leave the door open.”

I notice Kenji has his rifle raised and
armed. I follow the direction of the barrel.

It is pointing at the passenger’s side
door.

The door is wide open.

“Are you sure you closed it?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Kenji answers quietly. “I’m sure.”

“Like, all the way closed? Maybe the wind
blew it open.”

“There’s no wind,” Sarah says.

Kenji begins moving forward. “I definitely
closed it.”

I take a deep breath and my heart beats
faster and faster. Something isn’t right.

“Stay behind me,” Kenji says.

I check my rifle again. I make sure it’s
armed.

Sarah has her gun in her hand.

Kenji keeps a safe distance from the
driver’s cabin. “Who’s there?”

His question is met with silence.

“Talk to me or I will open fire.”

But again, there is no response.

“Maybe the door just opened by itself,” I
say. “Maybe it’s a really heavy door or something, and it just swung open.”

Kenji shakes his head.

He walks around the front of the truck and
he immediately lowers the barrel of the rifle, aiming it at something on the
ground. “Do not move! Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Sarah and I quickly follow Kenji, moving
around the front of the truck. And sitting down, leaning against the front
grill of the prime mover, is a man. He has his head lowered, his eyes closed,
and his hands in the air.

He is alone. He appears to be exhausted.
Malnourished. Weak. Confused. Just like the rest of us. Just like everyone.

I’m not sure if he knows that three people
are standing directly in front of him. I’m not even sure if he knows he has
three guns pointed at his head.

But he keeps saying, “Don’t hurt me.
Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Where the hell did you come from?” Kenji
asks. “Who are you?”

“Don’t hurt me,” he repeats.

“And what the hell are you doing out here
by yourself?”

“Please, don’t shoot…”

“You better give us a reason not to.”

“I’m not a bad person,” he says. “I’m not.”

“Where were you hiding?” Kenji asks.

“In back.”

Kenji shakes his head. “No, you weren’t. I
checked. You weren’t there.”

And the man finally opens his eyes. He
raises his head slowly and he looks at Kenji. He smiles. “I was. I was there.
You missed me.”

Kenji has his rifle aimed directly at this
guy’s head. But the barrels dips slightly. Kenji begins to second guess himself.

You
missed me…

This is because we are dehydrated. We are
staring to make mistakes.

I take over the questioning. “Where are you
from? Where have you been living?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding out here
the whole time. There’s no food. There’s no water.”

“Been living in the desert,” he answers.
“It’s the only way.”

“There’s nothing out here,” I say louder,
angrier. “Where’s your camp?”

“Not a camp.”

I step in front of him. I move closer,
aiming the gun directly at his head. “Do you know what this is? Do you know
what happens when I pull the trigger? You need to give us some answers, or
we’re going to find out. Now tell me, are you alone?”

He looks at the gun, and then he looks at
me. “You pull the trigger, you better mean it.”

He says this like he is reciting words from
a gun safety manual.

“And yes,” he continues. “I’m alone. I was
searching for supplies. Same as you people, I guess. Same as everyone. Thought
I might find some here. But vultures have already picked this carcass clean.”

Sarah picks up his backpack and opens it.

“What’s in there?” Kenji asks.

Sarah shakes her head. “Nothing. Three
empty water bottles. No food.”

“You packed light,” I say.

“I didn’t expect to be out here for this
long,” he answers.

“So where’s your camp? Your place?” I ask.
“Where have you been living?”

“It’s about a…” he pauses, thinking. “It’s
about a four or five day walk from here. Depending on how far you can walk in a
day. Or a night.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve only got three water bottles here.
No food. That’s not enough water to make that trip.”

“Each bottle is two liters,” he says. “I
drink one a day. It’s not much. But it’s enough to survive on.”

“What about your food?”

“Hunger got the better of me,” he whispers.
“Hunger always gets the better of me.”

“So it looks like you’re stranded out
here,” Kenji says. “No food. No water. You’re a dead man.”

He smiles again. It’s a goofy and creepy
and delusional kind of smile. Maybe he’s too dehydrated to know how truly dead
he already is. And maybe we are too.

“Not dead yet,” he whispers.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s water, if you know where to look.
It’s close.”

Kenji looks up and down this lonely road.
There was nothing but desert in all directions. The horizon ended in heat
mirages.

There is definitely no water here.

There
is nothing in the desert.

“I’ve been out here a long time,” I say.
“There’s no water. There’s no digging for it. There’s no rain. There’s no
creeks, or rivers or lakes. There’s nothing.”

“There is,” he answers confidently and
eagerly. Like someone who is happy to share a secret. “There are underground
rivers. Canyons. They are hidden and narrow. They fill up in the wet season.
They flow from the top end, all the way through the middle of the country. All
the way down.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“How do you think I made it so far? I’ve
got three bottles. One for each day. I’ve been out here for six. Six long days.
Six long nights. There’s an oasis not far from here. A freshwater river. Carved
its way through the desert a million years ago.”

“An oasis? You expect us to believe that?”

“You will believe it when you see it. When
you drink from it.”

“And you can take us there?” Sarah asks.

The man nods slowly. “I sure can. You give
me some food. You give me some water. I’ll take you there.”

We all look at each other, unsure of what
to do. Could we trust this guy?

Trust
is a dangerous thing. A deadly thing.

“We don’t have a choice,” Sarah says.

“Yes we do,” I say. “We push through. We
can make it.”

Sarah shakes her head. “No, we won’t make
it. We’re already dehydrated. The town is another two or three days’ walk. We
won’t make it. Our pace has slowed considerably. And Kenji is making mistakes.
We’re all making mistakes. We’re getting careless.” She lowers her head. “We
didn’t even check under the truck or any of the trailers when we got here.
We’re slipping. We’re slipping because we’re dehydrated. Because we’re
exhausted.”

“I don’t like this,” I say, not knowing
what else to say. Because right now, we are stuck. We knew this would be hard,
but it was taking longer than expected. Probably because we were already
struggling when we set off, we were already starving and malnourished.

This apocalypse, this plague, it is making
us weaker by the day.

“She’s right,” Kenji says. “We need water.”

Kenji slings his back pack off and finds a
pair of zip ties he took from the dead soldiers in the Blackhawk wreckage. “But
we’re tying you up,” he says to the stranger. “If you lead us into a trap, if
anything goes wrong, it will end bad for you. Do you understand?”

“Nothing will go wrong,” he says.
“Everything is right. We are going to the oasis. Finally.”

He is smiling. He is happy and delusional.

He is definitely dehydrated.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Billy,” he answers, offering his hand for
me to shake.

I don’t take it. Instead I say, “Billy, if
you screw us over, I will kill you myself.”

He nods to let me know he understands. He
is smiling, squinting his eyes against the harsh desert sun.

Kenji pulls him to his feet, and ties his
hands in front of his body. He does not struggle.

“Which way?” Kenji asks.

Billy points down the road. “This way. We
need to follow the road for a bit. Then we’ll find a trail. The trail leads
west. Into the sun. It will lead us to the oasis.”