Ashes, Ashes (7 page)

If Aidan had gone to her school, she wondered if he’d have talked to her or if he’d have gravitated toward the in crowd. She could picture him: confident, easy, and relaxed. She could see Julie and Hilly hanging on his muscular arms, imagine him in a letterman jacket or a numbered basketball jersey. What was his deal, anyway? He reminded her of the boys at school. He had that swagger, that confidence, which she could only suppose came from having things always go your way. And from looking like he did, like something out of a preppy sportswear catalog. But he was different, too, in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.

Two things bothered Lucy: One was that Aidan seemed to know quite a lot about her and where she lived. She wondered if he was spying on her after all. She’d felt as if she was being watched for a long time now. And if so, that begged the question
why
? And the other, far more important, was, what if he was right about the dogs? She could think of no reason why someone would be tracking her, but it made her feel unsafe for the first time since she’d found the hollow and the willow grove. She’d built her camp. It was as warm and dry as she could manage. It was comforting in a weird way, maybe because it was completely hers and proof that she could survive on her own, away from other people.

At first the thought of being alone had been terrifying. It was what had driven her to leave her family house and venture back into the city, searching for someone to tell her what to do next. She’d wandered blindly, attempting to mesh her memories of various streets with the rubble-strewn desolation around her, and eventually followed a cluster of scared-looking teenagers who seemed to be heading somewhere.

The shelters that had been organized after the first and second waves of the plague had passed were depressing and crowded with survivors looking for answers or authority figures that weren’t there. There were maybe five of them set up in gutted churches and schools and sports arenas around what remained of the city, and they all looked the same: long rows of camp beds, flickering tube lights, and huddled bodies under thin blankets. People bundled under the covers like they were children afraid of the dark. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time she’d seen her parents in the hospital, lying on gurneys side by side in the hallway with sheets pulled up over their faces.

It had been impossible to sleep. Every three hours there was the grinding roar of old generator-powered fans starting up and pushing around the warm air and the thick smell of unwashed clothing, unwashed skin, and instant noodles. And always, from one bed or another, a constant keening, like a wounded animal had crawled inside to die, and strangled sobs sometimes exploding into rage. The woman in the bed next to her, her gray face sagging with exhaustion, had never stopped crying and moaning, “The Sweepers took my boy away, the Sweepers took my boy away,” until it started to sound like the lyrics to a sad song. Lucy had slept in her clothes with her boots on and her backpack clasped to her chest, too scared even to visit the bathrooms at night, when grimy, wild-eyed people gathered for secret reasons of their own.

One day, as she was coming back from a solitary walk around a swampy, mosquito-infested neighborhood that used to have the best used record stores, she’d seen a squad of people in white hazard suits come out of the shelter with the sad woman and a few others—mostly children—bundle them into a white van with darkened windows, and speed away. The men’s faces were covered with blue surgical masks and their hands were gloved. The lady had left her purse behind, pushed halfway under her pillow, as if she was planning on coming back in a few minutes; as if she hadn’t meant to leave. By the next morning it was gone, and the pillow, too. Pillows were in short supply. After that, Lucy had gotten out of there as soon as she could. She’d been better away from people and among the trees, where she felt like she could breathe.

A sudden flurry of raindrops forced their way through the roof and dripped onto her head and neck. She blinked. She’d set bundles of sage burning in the corners and the purple smoke was thick on the ground, the spicy fug strong enough to mask the briny scent of cooked turtle. Her clothes were still damp, but beginning to stiffen. She had been sitting for an hour at least, staring at nothing. She peeled off her wet things, scrubbed her skin with a scratchy towel, and put on dry clothes. The thick woolly socks on her feet felt like heaven, even though her big toes poked through. She wrapped herself in her mother’s shawl, and then slipped on her leather jacket, pulling the collar up around her ears. She pushed her waterlogged boots close to the fire. Then she peered into the depths of the cooking pot. It looked like a thick soup, greenish-brown, and it smelled salty and wild. Chunks and strings of indefinable matter floated on the top. Lucy’s stomach turned an unhappy somersault, but from nausea or hunger, she wasn’t sure. It had been at least sixteen hours since she’d choked down a heap of lukewarm acorn mush, and she dipped a bowl in now, being careful not to stir up the murk too much. It was stronger tasting than she expected. As salty as boiled seaweed, and although she was careful to sip with a pursed mouth, straining it through her teeth, there was plenty of sand and little bits of turtle shell floating around with the gluey wild onions and the chewy dried mushrooms. It was slightly less repulsive than the salamander stew she’d made before finding out it was better to skin them first, and she reminded herself that the survival book had praised turtle meat as being high-protein and low-fat. However, she would not be recommending it to anyone.

She forced the food down, and then sat determinedly not thinking about what she had just eaten for a few minutes until she could be sure that it was going to stay down. Instead she found her thoughts returning to Aidan. Lucy decided that she was pretty sure she disliked him intensely, his attitude, his annoying self-assured way. The fire wheezed and snapped and sent out tiny wavering flames that occasionally puffed gouts of smoke as if they concealed a small dragon. The flicker of rain falling beyond the walls reminded her of snow on a television screen. Lucy fell asleep, sitting up, her jacket pulled tight around her, the smell of worn leather comforting.

In her dream there were dogs swimming in the lake, their pelts dark and streaming water like seals, and they were herding the small boat she was in, pushing it toward shore. There was something hidden in the pitch-black that terrified her. Was Aidan somewhere? She could hear him, but the sound of his voice echoed all around her, and she couldn’t tell where it was coming from, and it was too dark to see him. Suddenly she was certain that the dogs were pushing her away from the safety of land, into the open waters.

She came awake in a rush, not sure what had roused her. Her eyes felt as if they were filled with grit. The camp was flooded with a soft gray light. It was too quiet, and after a moment Lucy realized that the storm had blown itself out and that it was the encompassing stillness that had wakened her. She could hear the trickle of water sheeting down the walls of her shelter, but other than that there was a deep silence, muffled, as if she still had her head under her arm, or she were still asleep. It was eerie. She got up, forced on her boots without tying them, and moved the screen aside. She was definitely awake. Her boots were clammy, the leather stiff. It was not quite dawn. Droplets of moisture glistened on the grass stems. The rain must have just stopped. The trees about her shook as though a giant had flicked their tops carelessly as he walked past, and Lucy realized that the roof of her shelter was swaying as if blown by a strong breeze. But there was not a breath of wind now. It was still and so, so hushed, it seemed the entire world was frozen between moments.

Lucy stumbled out toward the shore. Wet reeds slapped against her hands. Her jeans were already soaked to the knee. The air was warm. All the myriad sounds of animals waking up were missing. No frogs. No birdsong. No rustle of mouse or vole in the long grass. The sun was rising now, just cresting the purple edge of the horizon behind her. She felt the heat on the back of her neck and shrugged out of her leather jacket and the shawl, carrying both under one arm. She checked to make sure her knife was sheathed at her waist. Everything seemed crystal clear, the curious quality of light so sharp it hurt her eyes. Her booted feet squelched and slid in the sand, the loose laces clumpy with mud. A sound like the
flip-flop
of a car’s windshield wipers in a rainstorm reached her ears, but magnified a hundredfold. Ahead of her, the surface of the sea appeared to be seething, like molten silver at a boiling point. She stopped and slit her eyes, shading them against the brilliance of the light. She’d seen the ocean just before a sudden storm, with a blazing sun overhead, when the waves seemed picked out in metal wires and the sky was almost black, but this was different. This was like a spilling of gleaming coins.

She realized that she was looking at fish flopping on the beach, thousands of silver bodies leaping like dancers. The tide was out so far, she could see nothing but the fish and the brown sugary sand, the water drained away as if someone had pulled a giant bath plug. Far beyond, reflecting flickers and flashes of sun, she could see the ocean. It was retreating, the waters drawing back like a tide in reverse.

She turned and began to run. Panic spilled into her mouth like bile. The waterlogged sand tugged at her feet, slowing her down and threatening to trip her. She pushed on, forcing her knees higher. No time to bend and tie her laces. Only two thoughts yammered in Lucy’s brain and she grabbed hold of them:
Get my stuff. Get to the highest ground I can find
.

CHAPTER FOUR
SEA

A
fter the first disasters, they’d had emergency drills at school: what to do in case of earthquake, cyclone, and flash flood. They’d watched countless hours of video footage, of Maui engulfed by lava and the devastating eruptions of Mount St. Helens and Mount Vesuvius, massive explosions that buried all of Portland, Oregon, in ash and molten rock, and tilted the city of Naples into a boiling sea. Even the youngest kids knew to find a doorway or a desk, a cellar or the highest ground.

So before the thought had hit her brain, Lucy had turned and started running. She had twenty minutes if she was lucky, ten if she was not, and considering how things usually played out in her life, she’d better not count on having enough time.

She had to abandon her home. The thought of it was a physical pain in her chest. Lucy was past the sands now, resisting the urge to turn around and look behind her, fearing the sight of that wave building as it rolled back in. She’d seen films of tsunamis towering a thousand feet, waters so high and fierce you expected to see Godzilla charging through them with tiny destroyers and navy boats bobbing around his leathery ankles. And she’d seen the footage of what was left behind: miles of wreckage, houses splintered, buildings mowed down and crushed, and the drowned bodies of humans and animals flung on the shore like driftwood.

Time seemed to slow down and then speed up again. Lucy felt like she was watching herself in a movie. Short, flickering scenes, as if the film were old and missing frames, the whole thing spliced together badly. She found herself in the salt marsh with no idea how long it had taken her to get there. It seemed mere moments. The ground was firm under her feet; she ran faster, and then the bristly grasses gave way to low shrubs and spindly bushes, and she skirted some and leapt over others, letting the panic take the lead. Ahead of her was the clump of supple trees that marked her camp. And the ground was wetter, slippery as oil, where it had flooded from the rains. She dodged hummocks of greasy grass, her breath coming in heaving gasps. Sweat trickled down her back. Just before the entrance she slid in a foot of water, but was up on her feet again before she felt the wet soak through her jeans. Lucy pulled the screen aside, hurled it from her, ducked down, and was in, casting her eyes around.

What should she take? No time to think. She unbuckled her backpack, pulled at the laces until it gaped open, stuffed the shawl inside, and jammed her arms into the sleeves of her leather jacket. Her brain was taking snapshots of each corner of her camp. Sleeping bag; the survival manual from the table; her clothes from yesterday, a damp, dirty pile on the ground. She shoved everything in, pushing it down as much as she could, feeling to make sure her journal was there, and then the bag was buckled and slung over her shoulder. She paused to kick dirt over the smoldering fire, then berated herself for wasting time. Tons of water were about to crash down on her, but it was a habit learned during the Long Dry when a wayward spark could destroy everything. One last look around. She didn’t have much. The pots and pans were an unnecessary weight. What food stores she had left were not worth taking. She grabbed a half-full water bottle, not sure if she’d find a stream or a spring safe to drink from. She hung her spoon and fork around her neck. The hammer of her heart seemed to be counting off the seconds. Was there anything else? She turned to leave, then suddenly remembered and ran to the place where her sleeping bag had been spread on a flattened pile of dried grasses, shoved her hand against the wall, and pulled out her yearbook. She clasped it to her chest, took one last look around, and ducked outside.

She bent and tied her laces, fumbling for a moment and finally settling for two tight knots which would be impossible to undo later. She stowed her yearbook in the bag and shrugged it back over her shoulders. The beach was still empty, the fish a thin layer of throbbing silver at this distance, with the deep blues of water and sky above. Choosing which way to go was a nonissue. West was the sea. East and south ended in water as well. North would take her up a slope and eventually to the Great Hill, and from there she could make a decision. A small voice in her head piped up and reminded her that the Hell Gate, Aidan’s camp, also lay in that direction, but she pushed it down. From the Great Hill she could journey on for a few days and cross the Geo Wash Bridge if she wanted or loop back around. Maybe come home in a day or two and try to salvage something, rebuild. She told herself she could completely avoid the Hell Gate if she wanted to.