The Variables (16 page)

“Can we stop saying that? Losing my wife and my friends was hard enough, that’s true. And I’m sorry about your mom, Ainsley, I am. But this trip is about Teddy. Grant. Nothing more.”

“Sure,” Ainsley replied with rancor. “Nothing more.”
 

“Wait...” Darla stopped mid-sentence and then pointed off into the hills, the rough direction of Nebraska. “You mean
Ethan
? You’re trekking across the barren landscape of rural America for a
boy
?” Darla asked.

Ainsley shut her eyes and drew her mouth tight. She refused to answer as Darla snickered, and then turned back to the car.
 

“Come on, Dean. Let’s grab our things. We’re walking.”

Ainsley sat up in a hurry.

“That
boy
is the only friend I have left...in the whole entire world,” she yelled. “Maybe you think that’s
stupid
, but it’s true.”

“Don’t you even tell me you were falling in love with him or I’m absolutely leaving you in the wilderness,” Darla shouted back, her head buried in the back seat of the Cadillac as she pulled out their collection of canned food, blankets, and the backpacks they’d nabbed from a school playground in Eastern Oregon before crossing the border. They were children’s bags; small and cartoonish, and they sat high on their backs.

Darla slipped her slender legs back on to the pavement and crawled her way back out of the car, and she paused to look at Ainsley; scrunch-faced and sober, unmoving.

“Ainsley,” Darla started. She swept her hair out of her face and then shot a look at Dean, who began putting provisions in the packs. “He was...
is
...a good kid. I like him, too. But we’re not going back for Ethan. Jesus, you know that, right?”

“Why do you get to call all the shots?” Ainsley fired back. “Why are your needs the only ones that matter?”

“
Needs
? You listen—” Darla started, but Dean cleared his throat in warning. She ignored him. “
I’m
on a mission and that mission does
not
involve Ethan King. Not even for a second. And that guy means a lot to me...you hear that, Ainsley? He means a lot to
me
. But my own kid means more. A helluva lot more. And if you think for one moment that I’d sacrifice saving Teddy for even a second more with Ethan...you’re out of your hormone-addled mind.”

“Hey. Easy now,” Dean said, playing the diplomat. “Ethan’s not the bad guy here. You heard that boy talk. He thought the saints would come a’marching in, waving the flag of friendship. I know lots of things about boys, especially boys Ethan’s age, and I’ll tell you what, I bet he’s beating himself up every hour for not being able to stop that massacre.”

“Sure,” Darla replied. She grabbed the small puppy backpack and slung it over her right shoulder. “I agree with you, Dean. Now let’s start walking.” She started trudging up the road, the luscious green of the forest a pristine backdrop. Dean followed, but then stopped. He looked back at Ainsley and called for her, but she stayed rooted to the road—the twenty-year-old girl acting out by demanding her space at the most inopportune time.

“What if he needs us?” Ainsley called after them from the ground. She said it fast and flip, not even bothering to move.

Darla took in a deep breath and started to respond, but then she turned away from Ainsley and kept on walking, keeping her eyes focused on the winding road and the river running parallel to them. A breeze blew through the trees; Darla sent up a silent prayer that an abandoned car would be waiting for them around the next bend: one void of decaying bodies and mechanical problems.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Dean whispered and he started to walk back, but Darla grabbed his arm.

“We’re all tired here. She’ll catch up when she wants to.”

“You’re going to leave her lying there?”

“Why not? You think a car is going to run her over?” Darla raised her eyebrows and Dean reluctantly acquiesced.

“It doesn’t feel right just walking on and not at least trying to encourage her to come along,” Dean replied. “I’m the older, wiser voice...”

Darla snorted. But she remained firm. “Keep walking, Dean. Ainsley’s an adult. We’ll be here when she wants to start acting like one.”

They were watchful. The animals were starting to make themselves known, and while most of the forest’s wildlife had steered clear, evidence that bears, cougars, and the less intimidating deer were thriving, not dying, became clear. It was the birds they noticed first. Right after the Release, it was hard to find birds in the sky—but now they were coming back, getting braver, picking at the rotting flesh of the bodies left behind.

It was unexplainable, but they hypothesized that animals in the city had fared worse than their wild counterparts. With that in mind, they kept to the main roads and remained vigilant.

Ainsley caught up to them after twenty minutes. She walked ten steps behind Darla, shuffling her feet, still in her torn jeans.

Behind them, the sun dipped lower in the sky. It was going to get dark soon and they had no place to camp that felt safe and secure, so they trudged onward, winding around the larch trees, the mile markers, the hiking paths.
 

Dean had acquired a long, weathered piece of wood and was using it as a walking stick; he stopped and pointed down a side road that hugged the river. “I think we venture off the highway.”

“How close were we to Montana when the tire blew?” Darla asked as she reached into her backpack to consult a map. She put her finger along Highway 12, assessing how it bifurcated the state and took them straight into Missoula. They’d find a car before that, though. Tiny towns dotted the landscape, and Darla estimated they had to be nearing one of them.

“Close in a car or close on foot?” Dean clarified and then he shrugged. “Neither, really.”

“Fine. Stick close to the Lochsa River.” She tucked the map back into her bag.

“Come on, just a little bit to go, then,” Dean encouraged.

They worked their way down off the highway, and a mile down a small road called Indian Grave Creek, they found what they were looking for: a tiny town, complete with a one-room storehouse and four or five houses situated along the river. A quick assessment of the store was shocking. The shelves had been cleared. There was not a stray grain of rice, a rotting apple or a crumpled candy-bar wrapper in sight. It had been picked clean. Even the gum stand next to the cash register was empty.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Ainsley said as she wandered the aisles, and then she opened up one of the freezers. Poking her head inside, she inhaled and made a face. “I think this has been
cleaned
, too.”

“I’m done trying to figure out the basics of human behavior,” Darla replied, looking out the storefront window into the parking lot. No cars. “You can’t expect people to behave rationally or logically. As a matter of fact, expect chaos and crazies and you’ll never be disappointed.”

“Should we check out the houses?” Dean asked, pointing off toward the nice river homes sitting off in the distance. “Sleep in a bed tonight?”

Darla was quiet for a long time, and Ainsley and Dean watched her. Then she stepped out of the store and looked around. “No,” she called back inside. She walked back into the barren grocery and put her hand on an empty shelf. “I just can’t handle any discoveries...no gore, no bodies. I think we should get wood and make a fire in the parking lot, and sleep in the store if we get cold.”

“I don’t mind doing the search—” Dean said, but then he caught a glimpse of Darla’s exhaustion, the deep pockets forming under her eyes, her shoulders slumped as he suggested it. “Yeah, kid. Sure. Parking lot.”

“Get ready for some beans and barbeque-sauce,” Ainsley added in a dry, even voice. “It’s a party.”

The fire had died down to the coals, glowing red embers. Dean had popped the can of beans directly into the fire, perched on a bed of intricately placed sticks. They ate greedily, shoving dinner into their mouths with silent gusto. And when they were done, they spread themselves out on the wooden porch and sat with their backs against the wood paneled storefront. A wind blew in and it was cold; summer was still a few weeks off, so the late spring offered little respite from the elements once the sun dropped below the horizon.

Ainsley pulled out her
Leaves of Grass
book and thumbed through the pages. She tilted it upward so the words were visible by the firelight. After a moment, she held the book to her chest and watched the flames lick at their collected pile of sticks and shrubbery.

“This is taking too long,” Darla said to herself. She let her head collapse into her tucked-up knees. She mumbled, “First thing in the morning, a car. Then...no rest until Nebraska.”

“That was the original plan,” Dean reminded her. “We’re getting there.”

Ainsley sniffed. “I bet they have real food. Pizza. Donuts.”

Dean shifted his attention, “Where? In Nebraska?”

“Yeah,” Ainsley breathed airily. “Nebraska.” She smiled. “I’m going to dream of pizza.” She stretched her arms and stood up, yawning deeply, with a little squeal at the end, and then she wrapped her arms around her body she shivered. “Was there a bathroom inside?”

“Nope,” Darla replied. “Twenty feet to the shrubs over there...”

Ainsley turned and pivoted and bounced down the steps, she lowered her head and began to wander away from the fire and the moonlight. Watching her disappear into the brush, Darla took her own cue and stood up.

“I’m turning in, Dean,” she said. When Dean didn’t reply she looked over and found him nodding off, his head bobbing like a cork in the water.
 

From beyond the parking lot, Darla heard the snapping of twigs and the rustle of the brush. She was about to call out to Ainsley and tell her not to wander too far, but she paused. The sounds of a scuffle grew louder. And then she heard the scream.

Darla jumped, the hairs on her arm stood on end, and her heart began to race. Ainsley was screaming—loud and shrill, a solid cry for help. Then her shriek turned muffled, and slid further away, and the forest went quiet. It all happened so fast that Darla hadn’t even made her way off the porch. Dean heard it too and was up on his feet, reaching for his gun.
 

But before either of them could react, Darla felt her body seize. Every muscle tensed and went into shock, and Darla fell straight over, hitting her head against the railing. A splitting pain traveled from her temple to her jaw.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean fall as well, his body vibrating against the wood, his mouth tight and rigid. His eyes rolled back in his head and she tried to scream, but her lungs wouldn’t take in or expel air.
 

When she was able to finally focus, Darla saw the black mask, and the green cylindrical filter. The eyes behind the filmy lenses were bright blue and wild: full of raw fear. Hands, covered in elbow-high gloves, reached out and patted her body. They discovered the gun and flung it out into the dirt. Her body started to correct itself and find its way back to normalcy, and she gasped for a breath, the pins and needles floated down her extremities. Darla took her wobbly arm and reached up at the face, but the masked person grabbed her arm and hoisted her upward and began to drag her down toward the fire. She thudded down the steps, her whole body hitting the wooden boards in turn.

Then Darla’s body drifted over Ainsley’s book, and she tried to reach for it, but her hands wouldn’t obey her brain’s commands. Stopping, the figure noticed Darla’s failed attempt and bent down and picked up the Walt Whitman. The person examined the outside cover briefly, and then tossed the book on to their fire where the small flames licked greedily at the thin pages, black tendrils of smoke filtered upward as the pages singed.

“No,” Darla breathed, but it sounded like a wheeze. “No.”

Without reply, the figure took a free hand and leaned down; something cold and metal jabbed into her neck and she thrashed wildly against it.

The stun gun incapacitated her again.

CHAPTER TEN

Darla’s limbs were shaking, and her heart beat rapidly inside her chest. She tried to process her surroundings in quick bursts as the Hazmat-suited kidnappers edged around her vision in their bright yellow and protruding gas masks. On the floor beside her, Ainsley curled up into a ball, unmoving, and behind them was Dean, his breathing ragged. The Taser-wielding people, one man and one woman from the looks of it, hovered above them, inspecting their victims with noiseless curiosity. Dean, Darla, and Ainsley were cornered, and an escape was out of the question.

The room was lit with candles, glowing and flickering against the wall, casting long shadows that crawled up to the ceiling. Upstairs a floorboard creaked; they were not alone.

“Who are you?” Darla asked. “What did we do to you?”

The two faces turned to each other in slow motion, their gas masks almost touching.
 

“We have no interest in your supplies,” Dean said. “We didn’t come to rob you. We are in a hurry...we are on a journey...this has nothing to do with you.”

The masks turned back to them. Like robots: turn, watch, turn again. The still quality of their voiceless command created an eerie discomfort. Like Scrooge’s ghost of Christmas future, they condemned them wordlessly.

“Let us go.” She had not held out hope that they would suddenly shrug and point to the door, but Darla couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Let us go get our stuff,” Ainsley muttered, still curled up into a ball. She stretched her legs and grimaced. “Please?” Her voice cracked and she put her hands together to plead. “My book.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Darla moaned.
 

“No,” came the swift reply. “No—”

“I doubt these guys care much about Whitman,” Darla said. “Or decency. Kindness.”

“No!” Ainsley continue to scream, her voice rattling in the back of her throat.

“Damn,” Dean whispered. He turned to Darla, “Who are we supposed to be afraid of?”

When Ainsley looked up, her face was streaked with tears, and her chest heaved as she began to get more worked up, fury flashing across her features. She stood in a quick blur of limbs, her hands in fists at her side, and she launched herself at the suits, landing soft blows into their chests and arms.