Akasha 4 - Earth (4 page)

"You know," I hissed, looking at him
over my shoulder. "Spiders."

"You just ran through an exploding
hillside, and you're worried about spiders?"

"Black widows can be deadly to a
two-year-old."

Alex moved ahead, and pushed open the
doors to the shed. I shoved him aside. Susan sat in the middle of
the floor, cross-legged with Bee lying in her lap. I knelt before
them, holding one hand to Bee's chest and the other just in front
of her mouth.

"She's breathing," I
announced.

"You look surprised." Susan glared at
me.

I hugged her. "Thank you."

I felt her shoulders relax, and I
released her. I leaned back on my heels and looked around.
Completely bare – even the shelves had been pilfered.

"I found something. Here, hold Bee,"
Susan said to me.

Susan shooed both me and Alex back to
reveal a trap door in the floor. Dust and grime covered the edges.
Susan stuck her finger in a knot in a floorboard and pulled up. A
staircase led down. Alex went first, disappearing into the
dark.

"It's ok!" he shouted up.

Susan went next, and I followed with
Bee, snoring away in my arms.

"Oh my God," Alex said, voice cracking
into a higher octave. "There are batteries." In the pitch black, I
heard him fumbling around, then a beam of light shot through the
underground storage area.

Alex aimed the flashlight at the
walls. Floor to ceiling shelves were stocked full of supplies. The
image danced in front of our eyes like some glorious revelation.
Canned foods, medical supplies, camping equipment, and lots and
lots of batteries.

I rushed to one of the
shelves. "Soap!" I could've danced a jig just then, if it weren't
for the sleeping baby. I turned to Susan. "Well, is this
all
you found?" I asked
with a teasing smile.

"No. There is also that." She pointed
up.

I craned my neck, looking back up the
steep staircase to the ceiling of the shed. Alex pointed his light
up and my mouth dropped open. A canoe hung from the
rafters.

Chapter
6

Pocahontas

"One, two, three, and
push!"

The back wheels were stuck in the mud
yet again. That Alex had been able to find them at all was amazing,
but one was beginning to go flat, and we had a little over half a
mile until the river. Or 'a click and a half' as Alex put
it.

"One more time. One, two, three,
push!" Alex repeated. Susan and I pushed while he pulled, and the
tire popped free of the mud.

"Explain to me again how
you were able to find the tires, but no vehicle to
drive
us to Utah?" Susan
asked, picking up a can of green beans that had toppled out of the
canoe. Bee continued to nap in the middle on top a pile of
blankets. That girl could sleep through anything.

"Because, all the cars were blown up.
Whoever attacked the compound probably hit the garage first. These
were the only tires sitting around that weren't actually on fire."
Alex swatted at a mosquito on his arm. His tone with Susan was
short and clipped.

We were all tired. After the high of
discovering the loot, I had explained my brief stint in U.S.
politics. Alex went into the bunker to find some way to transport
the canoe to the river, while Susan and I loaded up. We had emptied
the shelves entirely. I just hoped the canoe would still float with
all this weight.

"Did you find any weapons, or
ammunition?" Alex asked.

"No," I said. A pistol hung at each of
our hips. They had been empty of bullets for months now, but still
proved to be a valuable deterrent. Travelers thought twice about
going after our supplies when we looked armed.

Alex's shoulders sagged.

"Are we there yet?" Susan
whined.

Alex's shoulders sagged even further.
The past year and a half couldn't have been easy on him, trudging
from state to state, dragging along two women and a
baby.

"Where do you suppose the president
was headed?" I asked, trying to keep Susan's mind occupied with
something other than her sore feet.

She shrugged. "Probably another
bunker. Someplace with running water and air
conditioning."

"Maybe even back to D.C. While we were
there, plenty of people mentioned how much better the capital has
become compared to right after the EMP. Much more tame," Alex
said.

His version and my version of tame
differed greatly. There was still rioting when we went through, and
almost the entire Southeast section was on fire. There was no sign
of Micah in all that mess.

"I should've followed the President,"
I mumbled. "He probably has a boat – with a motor and
gas."

I suppose I should just be
thankful for the pair of oars inside the canoe.

A half an hour later, Susan's head
jerked up, eyes going wide and face cracking into a smile. "The
river is close."

Several minutes later, I heard it. We
rolled the canoe to a stop alongside the shore. It wasn't very
large, but seemed tame enough. We would still need to find a life
jacket for Bee.

"Are we sure this is the Greenbrier
River?" I asked. It was a convoluted route on West Virginia's river
system, even before we reached the Ohio. There were plenty of
tributaries leading in or flowing out along the way. Keeping on the
right path would be tricky. It wasn't like there were road signs
posted.

Alex consulted one of the many maps he
acquired. "Pretty sure." He nodded twice, as if to reassure
himself, then folded the map.

"Well." Susan rubbed her hands
together. "Let's shove off, shall we?"

I laughed. Her mood always improved
when close to water.

"Hold on Pocahontas," Alex said. "We
need to make some modifications to the boat first."

"Modifications? What modifications?" I
frowned. The more we stalled, the less likely we were to make it a
ways down river before Bee woke up.

A rustling from the boat caused us all
to turn our heads.

Too
late
, I groaned to myself.

Bee was rooting around in the pile of
supplies. She came up with graham crackers.

"Tootie!" she exclaimed
proudly.

"Okay. Modifications for Alex –
cookies for us."

After two hours of watching Alex work,
and trying to keep track of Bee while she searched for more
honeysuckle, we were finally ready to go.

I threw a full bag of the white petal
flowers into the canoe and hopped in next to Bee as Alex pushed us
off.

"She can sniff those out like a pro,"
Alex said.

"She knows what's important," I said,
putting her on my lap. There was just enough room for my legs,
which was far better than before. "Where did all the batteries
go?"

"Hidden under the seats," he said,
steering us away from the banks.

My heel hit wood underneath the
bench.

"Hopefully it'll appear to just be
part of the canoe. If we can hold onto them long enough, we might
be able to trade our way into anything we need."

After Daybreak, batteries became the
new currency. It was sometime during our last leg in Tennessee when
seeing people tend their makeshift car greenhouses while listening
to their iPods no longer seemed unusual.

"Picking up anything?" Alex asked
Susan.

She was at the front of the canoe,
with her hand in the water. "A lot of disturbance
upriver."

"Could it be whatever tore apart the
underground bunker?" I asked.

"Maybe. It’s powerful." She paused,
skimming her fingers along the top of the calm river. "But nothing
downstream so far as I can tell."

"Micah doing his part?" My question
was rhetorical.

"Well, let's just get through this
while the coast is clear, and hopefully whatever is behind us
doesn't catch up," Alex said, rowing hard with his oar. "Kaitlyn, I
could use a little manpower here."

I nodded, closing my eyes, tuning into
the frequency of the air. A little downwind wouldn't
hurt.

"Nope," he interrupted by tapping a
wooden handle on my shoulder.

I took the other oar and
frowned.

"He's right," Susan said, turning
around. "We don't want to attract any unwanted attention. Only
physical energy from here on out, unless it is an
emergency."

I grumbled, angling my oar toward the
water. I had literally never rowed a boat before. "I don't see you
with a paddle."

Susan smiled, turning back to the
water. "I'm the navigator."

Alex snickered. I looked back at him;
his oar dragged in the water.

"What?" he said. "I'm
steering."

The canoe jolted forward, and a small
boulder hidden just under the river's surface scraped against the
entire length of the boat.

"I just thought of a good name for our
new ride," I said as I plunged my oar into the water and pulled
back. "The Titanic."

Chapter
7

Dropping Anchor

Susan and Alex had their communication
skills down to a science, and all potential icebergs were avoided.
Around midday, Alex and I stopped banging our oars and settled into
a coordinated pattern worthy of any high school row team. Bee took
several naps, lulled to sleep by the rocking boat.

We pulled over to the side of the
river by nightfall. Alex created an anchor by tying a dozen D
batteries together with 550 cord. Extra blankets underneath and
over me made for a more comfortable bed than I had in a long time.
If every day went like this, I would be a happy camper. I kept my
eyes peeled open as long as I could. It had become my evening
ritual; less sleep meant fewer nightmares. But I was no match for
the gentle rocking of the canoe on water, or Bee's comforting
warmth.

* * *

"Easy there, princess." Shawn's words
echoed through my head. His blue eyes floated in front of me. Fire
surrounded us like a ring, blocking off any hopes of retreat. I
could still hear Bee snoring in my ear. This was a dream. No – a
nightmare. One I had already seen through to the end. But here I
was again because there was some unresolved business.

I looked around; there was no one
else.

Shawn held his Athame up, pointed at
my neck. Something danced at my back, taunting me. But the knife
held my attention.

"Where's the baby?" he
asked.

I flinched, and the thing behind me
flickered like a strobe light.

"Kaitlyn." My name on his
lips, my
real
name, sounded foreign. "The baby is mine."

The light behind me started to rise. I
knew I could stop it if I wanted. There would be consequences if I
did, there would be consequences if I didn't. What outcome would be
worse?

My insides shook with anxiety. I had
to make a decision fast. I focused on the tip of the knife. Behind
it, Shawn's lip curled up in a smile. "It's already too
late."

Blood dripped down the flames
surrounding us, turning them more red than orange.

"Now!" the scream came from nowhere
and everywhere at the same time. I had to make the
decision.

* * *

My eyes flew open, heart pounding from
the nightmare. I blinked, calming my body, as the morning sun
peeked out above the trees. My arm was numb from Bee's large head
laying on it all night. I was sore and stiff from a day of rowing,
and I was covered in bug bites. If every morning started like this,
I was not going to be a happy camper.

"Alugh," I mumbled. No one in the boat
stirred. I cleared my throat and licked my cracked lips.
"Alex!"

"Huh?" a sleepy voice sounded out from
the back of the canoe.

"Are the water bottles back there?" I
looked up just in time to see one being lobbed in my general
direction. It landed on the bench. "You could've hit
Bee."

"Mommy?" Bee asked, stretching her
limbs in the small space she had. I sipped water, watching her run
through the usual morning routine. A frown while her eyes searched
new surroundings; rarely would she wake up in the same location two
days in a row. Then reaching out with her hand, feeling for a
reassuring warm body. Finally she would turn her face up to the
sky. Even if the trees weren't what she remembered before going to
sleep, the sky would always be there, hovering over her. She really
didn't do well indoors any longer.

Next would be her first word of the
day. Generally, it would be a word repeated throughout the morning
ad nauseum. This morning's word was, "Itchy."

I leaned over, peering at her face a
little closer. Bug bites covered her, too. One was still feasting
at her hairline.