The Variables (8 page)

“What?” Dean called, and he took a step forward, cradling his hand, rubbing the tenderness of the burn.

“Nothing,” Darla replied. She had thought she had heard something—the distinctive snap of a tree branch, a rustle of movement. The hair on her arm stood at attention and like a predator in the wild, her senses heightened, she scanned the perimeter, unmoving.

“Come help me with this. I think I put some gloves in the truck...”

“Dean—” Darla said. She didn’t turn to face him. “Leave it.”

He began to protest. But Darla put up her hand to freeze his argument. Then she turned, unable to locate the source of the sound. “Leave. It.”

A new plume of black smoke tumbled into the sky, and she watched it curl and loop into the cloud cover.
 

Dean looked down at the heavy metal contraption, with its exposed motor and external gas tank. A source of power and a source of comfort, the generator provided the Oregon survivors with small luxuries during their last days together.
 

Like a dejected preschooler, he shuffled away and muttered under his breath, and Darla watched him go, as he slipped through the wisps of smoke. Then she turned back to the empty woods and felt an urge to sob. For a brief second, she thought she had seen the shadow of her child slipping from tree to tree. When she realized it was just a figment of her imagination, her brain created an alternate reality where Teddy was still by her side and safe. She could feel the flesh of his hands seeking out her fingers. She clutched him tight until the moment passed and her brain reminded her that it was only air.

With heavy footsteps, she trudged back toward Dean and the pickup, her arms motionless by her side.

“We’ll find him,” Dean said as Darla climbed back into the truck. She took her gun off her side-holster and placed it on the expanse of seat cushion between her and the driver’s side—it sat lamely on the leather next to a crumpled up fast food bag and a discarded cassette tape.

“Yes, we will,” Darla replied, and she turned to look at her unlikely traveling partner. She saw his expectant look, his puppy dog eagerness, and she added, “And we’ll find Grant, too.”

He smiled and tapped the steering wheel with an energized rat-a-tat-tat, as if that was what he had been waiting for her to say. Putting the car into drive, Dean rolled down the road, weaving through the abandoned cars and overturned recycling cans that made up the landscape of their lives. The neighboring house behind them still refused to give in to the fire, and Darla hoped that rains would come and save the chain reaction from picking up speed.

Dean’s face was scruffy and his fingernails were blackened from an accumulation of dirt and grime. She imagined that in a different life this lanky, brown-eyed man might have been attractive. He had a sweet naiveté that both enraged and endeared him to Darla. And from what she had gathered, the Trotter men seemed to share a penchant for starry-eyed optimism and blind allegiance.

“We’ll have to take the back roads. When I was out exploring before you all came along,”—Dean said
came along
as if they had just happened upon each other one sunny afternoon and not as if he had been caught pilfering their supplies—“I saw that we are boxed in. No major roads or freeways are passable.”
 

“I know,” Darla replied.
 

“So, you know we should cut up north once we get on the other side of the river. Back roads through the mountain range, then down and along the Columbia? Washington to Idaho, maybe. Through Montana if we can’t find a better way.”

Darla nodded.

“Not a shortcut, per se. Makes me wish I had my balloon,” Dean said, and he chuckled to himself. When she didn’t reciprocate even a smile, Dean sighed. “If you trust me, I’ll just make a go of it. Do my best. We can trade off. Drive until we can’t.”

“That’s all we can do,” Darla managed to say. Then she leaned her head against the back window and let her eyes slide shut.

She felt the car roll to a stop at the end of the street and Darla suppressed the urge to make a snide comment about old habits; there were some ingrained actions that were hard to shake. Then, as Dean pulled forward, she heard the shatter and felt the pebbles of the back window falling down around her. The sound jolted her upright, her mind frantic. They were back, she thought. Teddy’s kidnappers came back to finish the job.

“What the—” Dean cried, and he screeched to a halt.

Without hesitation, Darla grabbed her gun and spun, firing a shot out of the now-open window. Then she heard the shriek; the high-pitched scream halted her from firing another shot into the void.

Spinning to get a better look, Darla saw her.

Ripped clothing, matted hair, dried blood caked to the left side of her face. One leg of her jeans was ripped to the knee, and she was missing a shoe.
 

Ainsley stood in the middle of the road, holding fist-sized rocks against her body, panting and wailing after the truck. When she saw that the truck had stopped, Ainsley dropped the rocks, scattering them against the asphalt, and shuffled forward, wincing, her body racked with sobs as she approached the idling truck. Her shoeless foot dragged behind her, streams of tears smearing the blood on her cheek.

“Sweet Mary and Joseph,” Dean said. He jumped out and rushed forward to her, holding his arms out and inviting her to fall forward into them. She buried her head into Dean’s chest and clung to him, her hands clutched the arms of his jacket like they were the only things holding her upright.

Darla could hear Dean shushing Ainsley, and she let her gun drop back down. It was then she realized that her hand was shaking; she balled it into a fist, opening and closing her fingers until the tremors subsided.

She wanted to join in the reunion; she wanted to celebrate Ainsley’s failed assassination. Certainly the men who arrived at their house came with a single mission: annihilate everyone but Ethan and Teddy. The fact that Dean, Darla, and Ainsley walked away meant that their mission had been a disaster. But Darla couldn’t find any joy and pleasure in seeing Ainsley’s face.

For a second, Ainsley peered above Dean’s jacket with wide, pleading eyes, seeking out Darla in the truck and shaking her head before hiding again.

And it was then Darla heard Ainsley’s voice, muffled but clear. “Please don’t let her kill me,” she cried. “Please, Dean, please. Please don’t let her kill me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The festival was intended to boost morale.

People heard about the Brikhams’ fate. Rumor had it that the family was given the tanks for subversive behavior, and no one doubted it. The Brikhams had few allies among the survivors, but while the family’s neighbors wouldn’t miss the late-night shouting matches or their son Charlie’s blatant thievery, their absence created pockets of angsty discussions in hallways. The worry was spreading.

So, according to Lucy’s mother and father, Huck dreamed up a spectacle to while away the hours.
 

It seemed like an odd juxtaposition: one thousand sun-deprived people with varying levels of cabin fever filing in and out of the Center, participating in old-school carnival games and eating popcorn and hot dogs like it was all they had ever wanted. Rock music pumped through the speaker system and occasionally the MC, a shiny haired former NASA employee and weekend comic, would break in with raffle prizes, booth announcements, witty banter, and all-around good cheer.
 

The Sky Room chefs hosted a cake walk; someone had brought or pilfered Polaroid cameras and set up a photo booth. People walked away from it shaking the flimsy, slowly developing film in eager anticipation of seeing their expressions materialize from nothing. It was a simple joy. The System’s occupants milled around between beanbag tosses, miniature bowling pins, and face painting stations. Many were smiling, some looked perplexed. Most were enjoying themselves.

At the center of the excitement was Maxine, standing guard with a clipboard. Drawing from her years as the chairwoman for the PTA, she threw herself into leading the event with special attention to the carnival milieu. Huck personally contacted her to fill the role of party planner. She’d organized some carnivals before, so Maxine got straight to work. With a job to do, Maxine had allowed herself freedom and distance from Ethan, who was still mute and refusing his physical therapy.

Maxine’s grief subsided with the project to keep her mind busy. If the elaborate set-up was any indication, the King matriarch was suffering more than she let on.

She’d enlisted the help of many of the System’s occupants, including Grant, who was set to perform as a keyboard player in a cover band.

Perhaps Maxine’s most ridiculous and atrocious act was convincing Cass to don herself in a billowy off-the-shoulder dress and set herself up in a darkened tent in the corner of the Center under a sloppily painted sign that read: Fortune Teller.

At first Lucy was adamant that she wouldn’t visit Cass. It was a silly, degrading, borderline racist assignment. But Cass didn’t mind; her grandmother, who had passed long before the world succumbed to Scott’s virus, had been a firm believer in divination and the power of the Tarot. So, despite Lucy’s eye-rolls and supplications, Cass assumed the role of the System’s oracle.

During the carnival, Lucy was relegated to babysitting duty, following Teddy and Harper around with their trails of tickets and goody bags filled with candy, stickers, and other trinkets—which Maxine had demanded as a necessity for the festival’s success.

Whether Huck had already stocked the System with Maxine’s must-haves or whether he sent his precious military into the nearest city to loot abandoned party supply stores, Lucy didn’t know.
 

When Maxine King planned parties, she moved mountains. So, secretly, Lucy hoped the latter was true. She pictured a trail of guards, seeking out a Nebraskan strip-mall, locating a party store, and gingerly stepping around bodies while stuffing garbage bags with cheap necklaces, miniature Slinkies, and individually wrapped bubble gum.

Galen, done with his shift at the cake walk, tapped Lucy on the shoulder.

“Your turn?” she asked and thrust the brimming bags outward into Galen’s chest. “Teddy wants to jump in the bouncy castle again and Harper is over there.” Lucy pointed to the fishing game, where Harper stood, her face smeared with the remnants of a chocolate treat. She was holding a makeshift fishing pole, waiting for the tug that indicated her prize was ready.
 

Galen gave Lucy a look—a cross between resignation and annoyance—and then he plodded away, following after the youngsters.

Lucy spun and looked at the darkened fabric flaps over the entrance to Cass’s domain. She would have wanted to walk around with Grant, perhaps sit with him in the movie theater where her mother had requested old black and white movies to play during the duration of the event. But he was out of commission. So, with a small shake of her head, she walked straight into the tent. Small twinkle lights danced around her and Cass sat at a covered table, a deck of cards spread downward before her.
 

“You came,” Cass said, and she smiled. “I thought you’d avoid me.”

“I had to see what my mother had done to you,” Lucy replied, and she let her eyes wander around the small interior of the fabric tent. “Where’s your crystal ball?”

“I don’t use a crystal ball, silly. Most clairvoyants don’t need gimmicky tools to tell you your past or your futures. Sit.” Cass had adopted a thicker accent for her role; she winked at Lucy and pointed to a wooden chair next to her table, but Lucy hesitated. Cass clicked her tongue. “Please.”

Lucy sat and rolled her eyes. “This whole thing—”

“People needed something familiar.”

“Aren’t there some things we can do away with in this new world? People needed a dunk tank? People needed
this
?”

“Sometimes people don’t know what they need, but they’ll accept a substitute.”

Lucy put her hands on the glass top of the table and looked at her friend. “You’re good at this. That was a very fortuneteller-y thing to say.”

Cass shrugged, a coy smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. “So, are you here for your fortune or are you here to poke fun?”

“Poke fun,” Lucy answered without hesitation. “I don’t believe in this stuff. I don’t believe in ghosts or mediums. Once, when I was a kid, I thought I saw a ghost, right? My dad came in...told me ghosts didn’t exist. He said science can explain away the supernatural. It was comforting, actually.”

Raising her eyebrows, Cass picked up the deck in front of her and began to shuffle. She raised one hand and then the other, flipping the cards with methodical tenderness. “Your dad believes in science. Grant believes in God. What do
you
believe in?” she asked, shuffling one-handed now, but never taking her eyes off of Lucy.

“This is weird.”

“It’s just a carnival.”

“I only wanted to say hi.”

“I’ll need a ticket.”

“Oh, come on,” Lucy let out a small laugh. Then Cass raised her eyebrows and held out her hand, and so she was forced to dig deep into her pockets and pull out one of the tickets she had kept for herself. She placed it in Cass’s hand and Cass tucked it into a pocket in her dress, then she smiled.

“Shall we do past, present, future?”

“I don’t know what that means—”

Cass flipped down card number one. “Deluge, reversed,” she read.

“Deluge—”

The fortuneteller nodded. “A reversal of fortune. Something bad that led to something good.”

“It’s not fair. You know too much about me now. It’s like those people that steal your wallets and then tell you that you live in a poor part of town or something. All of this means nothing,” Lucy replied. She leaned forward to stare at the card. It showed a house uprooted by a flood, spinning wildly out of control. Lucy tapped the card with her index finger. “How do I know you even know what you’re doing?”

Cass didn’t acknowledge Lucy’s question and flipped down the second card. She peered at it and tilted her head, then she looked at Lucy, her dark eyes latching on to hers and then she nodded affirmation. “Erzulie La Flambeau.”