Psion Gamma (23 page)

“What are you crying about?” Sammy demanded. “I’ve had the same amount of food and water as you, and I’m not crying!”

Toad responded by curling his small body into a ball beside the fire. Sammy shook his head, disgusted with Toad but also with himself. It was like two different people lived inside his own head, the old Sammy, and the new one: a twisted creature who’d risen out of the broken, beaten, nearly-destroyed person, thanks to the care of Stripe. The new Sammy had neither time nor patience for crying and whining. This new fellow wouldn’t mind leaving Toad behind to fend for himself or die. He might not even mind putting Toad out of his misery if things got bad enough. Fortunately, old Sammy was stronger now and held the new one at bay.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“I miss my parents so much, Sammy.” Toad’s voice was muffled by wet hands covering half of his face. “I don’t mean to be a baby.”

“I know.” He felt inadequate to the task of comforting Toad, so he said no more.

Toad looked up at Sammy. Tears had paved little paths down his dirty face. Something was in his eyes that both scared and thrilled Sammy.

“Will you teach me?” Toad asked.

“Teach you what?” Sammy asked even though he already knew the answer.

“To fight. To kill them like you did.”

Sammy did not answer for some time. He stared back at Stripe in the flames, hating him and in some odd way missing him, too. His silence seemed to help calm Toad. “I don’t know, Toad. We’ll see.”

He wanted to say something else, something profound or sensitive, but nothing came. A blank slate. That happened too often lately. It drove home again the possibility that maybe his Anomaly Eleven was just . . . gone. Perhaps he should do something else, a kind gesture, like put an arm around Toad or give him a compliment. He opened his mouth to let out whatever would come from it, but Toad had fallen asleep.

Day two of searching the little town of Cedar Mills yielded a couple things Sammy hadn’t expected. In one house they searched, they found an old Texas/United States map in a kitchen drawer. Sammy could barely contain his excitement. Upon perusal of the map, Sammy discovered the second thing he hadn’t expected. They had to cross Lake Texoma in order to get to Wichita.

At first, Sammy couldn’t believe it. He led Toad outside and they walked northeast about a kilometer. Sure enough, before them stretched a giant reservoir as far as they could see. Seagulls flew lazily along the coast, congregating cordially on the docks that stood empty in rows stretching out into the water. Several weather-beaten signs pointed in the directions of the Cedar Mills Marina Resort.

Sammy stared at the reservoir for a long time, enjoying the sound of the water and birds, feeling something in his soul he hadn’t felt for months: peace. A part of him felt cleansed, whole. He wouldn’t mind staying here longer, in solitude, right on the lakeside.

“When I get old, I’m going to live on the water,” he told Toad.

Then his mind snapped back to reality and he swore out loud. Toad looked at him, puzzled.

“We have to find a boat,” Sammy explained. “We’re gonna have to row across the lake. Two or three kilometers up north.”

Toad unfolded the map and traced his finger along a white line running north. “There’s a bridge we could cross right here. Highway 377! We don’t need a boat.”

Sammy snatched the map from Toad and folded it carefully. “Think about it. We can’t take the bridge. We’ll be out in the open with nowhere to go if they find us.”

“Give me a break! We won’t even be on the bridge for a half hour.”

Sammy’s face grew hot and he struggled to maintain his calm. “You’re right. We won’t be on it at all. Can you take any of them on in a fight? If so, then you can help make decisions. Until then, shut up and do as you’re told.”

Toad took a swing at Sammy, but Sammy pulled back, letting Toad’s fist hit air. A gentle blast put Toad on his butt in the sand.

“I told you not to hit me anymore!” Sammy growled.

“Then quit being a jerk! Okay? I asked you to teach me to fight, and you said you would.”

“I said ‘we’ll see.’ That doesn’t mean yes. Now get up and help me find a boat and more food.”

For most of the day they went through houses, one by one, street by street, until they’d gone through the whole little town except the northern-most street: Oxford. Several houses on this block were larger and older, two of them even boarded up and condemned. Inside the first condemned home, the wooden floors creaked under their steps. Some of the windows had been left open, exposing the walls and floors to water damage and debris. Sammy sent Toad upstairs to search while he went through the main level. He heard Toad stomp up the steps and the ceiling groaned under his weight.

The kitchen was designed in a rustic log cabin sort of way: stove and counter tops made of brick with wooden bordering. Sammy ran his fingers along the brick as he went from cabinet to cabinet, finding all of them empty. He went into the pantry, a small room filled with shelves. The floor was covered with a faded, dusty rug of red, white, and blue. In the back was a small cardboard box. Sammy crossed the small room to check it out. The floor under his feet gave an extra loud creak, startling him.

The box was full of empty glass jars and lids. Sammy kicked the box half-heartedly. As he crossed back to the door, he felt a pop under his feet. At first he thought the floor was about to give way under him. He grabbed the rug and pulled it aside to inspect. Instead what he found was a square trap door, big enough for one person to enter.

He pulled opened the trap door and looked down into a small cellar not big enough to stand in. It was about twelve feet wide and went back under the house about thirty feet. The smell reminded Sammy of the walkway above the abandoned grocery store in Johannesburg, as if no one had been down there for a long, long time.

And it was filled with food.

Toad came running when Sammy called him. They went down together, and hauled up more food than they could hope to carry. Powdered milk, dried fruit, bottled water, guns, ammo, canned fruits and meats and vegetables, even dehydrated meals. Toad found toothbrushes and toothpaste. On the back wall hung two flags. Sammy recognized one as the Texas flag. It matched the symbol on the map they’d found. The second flag had a large snake and read: “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Their lunch of crackers with canned ham and apple chips was heavenly. They loaded two large packs full of supplies, then filled the wagon to the brim. Toad looked nervous when Sammy said he wanted to take a gun, but Sammy paid him no mind. In fact, he felt a lot better having it.

“We’ll spend the rest of the day looking for a boat, then come back here for the night. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll row across the lake and start hiking to Wichita.”

They did just that. Toad spotted a canoe resting on sawhorses in a backyard near the corner of Oxford and Old Castle. Sammy inspected it and found only small cracks in the red paint. The oars were in bad shape, too. Finding nothing better, they portaged the canoe over to the lake’s edge before it got too dark to see where they were going.

After a large dinner and another night’s rest in the old house, they woke up with the sun and headed out with the packs and wagon. The weather was lousy, but they had ponchos now, so Sammy didn’t mind as much when the gray clouds unleashed a steady drizzle on them as they loaded the canoe.

“Do you know anything about rowing?” he asked Toad.

“Sure, I’ve seen it before,” was Toad’s answer.

“Where?”

“In a movie.”

They got the canoe into the water and Sammy told Toad where to paddle. The weather made the water choppy and steering more difficult. The lake was only about two kilometers wide where they decided to cross out. They were well out of view of anyone who might be driving across the bridge, but the going was slow. Toad dropped his paddle twice and Sammy had to fetch it before the canoe passed right by it.

About a third of the way across, Sammy noticed the canoe was taking on water.

“Is that from the rain?” Toad asked, pointing at the small puddle in the bottom of the canoe.

“Just keep paddling,” Sammy told him. “We’re fine.”

But as he examined the canoe more closely, he realized that what he’d thought were chips in the paint were actually cracks in the canoe.

He began paddling faster. Toad wasn’t able to keep the pace, which threw Sammy off. Most of the canoeing he’d done had been with his father on the lakes near Johannesburg. He knew his father’s routine well. Canoeing with Toad was much more difficult. He tried giving orders to help Toad, but it only made the process more confusing. About halfway across Lake Texoma, the canoe started to creak and squeak like a giant rat. Sammy saw that part of the wood was now leaking water steadily, and the puddle had grown much larger.

He moved the packs to a safer place and paddled with more vigor.

Come on, Sammy! You can do this.

Toad heard the noises of the packs being moved and turned to see what was happening. His eyes got big when he saw the water, and he started sniffing again.

“Are we sinking?” he asked.

“Just paddle,” Sammy ordered. “Don’t worry about it.”

But they needed to worry. The canoe was moving slower than ever. The muscles in Sammy’s arms burned. His body was out of shape, having wasted away from no exercise and little food for two months.

The northern shoreline was still about a kilometer away. Sammy encouraged Toad to paddle faster, but this only made Toad nervous, causing him to drop the oar again.

“Come on, Toad!” Sammy shouted. “I need you to do better than this.”

He reached for the oar as it came within his range, but the wood was now quite wet. When his fingers touched the oar, they slipped off. He swore loudly as he watched the paddle float away. He considered braking and circling back, but they simply didn’t have time to do that. The water was coming in too fast.

“Can you swim?” he asked Toad.

“Yeah, can you?” Toad sniffed several times in rapid succession.

“We aren’t going to get anywhere in this piece of junk. Grab your pack and swim to shore. Take off your poncho first.”

They took off their ponchos and left them in the canoe, which now held about ten centimeters of water with more flowing in. Sammy jumped first.

About ten seconds later, Toad joined him. Sammy treaded water as he watched for Toad to resurface. The canoe began to sink. Sammy shook his head as he thought of the wagon still inside with everything they’d stacked on it. Then the canoe went down.

It’s not fair. What’s the point in letting us find all that food?

Toad made his way over to him doing a bad impression of the side stroke. “I can’t swim with this pack,” he gasped, spraying water from his lips. His dark hair clung to his skin, covering his eyes. “It’s so heavy.”

Sammy turned and began to swim to the north shore. “You’re not eating any food out of my pack if you let yours go.”

The swim was exhausting. His arms and legs ached with fatigue. Toad was far behind him now, barely keeping his head above water. They hadn’t made much progress, maybe another quarter of a kilometer. As much as Sammy didn’t want to admit it, the pack was killing him, like trying to swim with a rock strapped to his back.

He turned back to meet Toad halfway. Toad’s breaths came in desperate gasps. Sammy helped him get the pack off. For about two seconds he considered swimming with both packs, but as soon as the weight hit him, he realized what had to be done. He let Toad’s pack go, allowing it to sink to the bottom of the lake. The rest of the swim passed slowly. Every stroke sapped the last bits of his strength. Toad swam behind him doing a lazy breaststroke. The pack on Sammy’s back grew heavier until he felt like Atlas with the whole world on his shoulders.