Donor 23 (19 page)

Joan descended the minaret, crying as she hiked, the tears in her eyes causing her to stumble. She continued quickly west, realizing the immense canyon would block them from reaching her for now. Only for now.

A hill rose in the distance. Climbing to the top, she could get a better view of the surrounding area. Once at the crest, she stared in disbelief.

Before her lay hundreds of dead trees, flattened out, as if a giant hand swept down upon them. She thought of the nursery rhyme, “The white riverbank makes a very good road,
the dead trees show you the way
.” These must be the dead trees that would show her the way. Optimism again. Hope.

She walked among them. They must have been there a long time. They were petrified—turned to rock. The trees were large—two to three feet in diameter. The dirt they lay in was soft and ash-like, yet gritty and mildly abrasive. She rubbed her fingers through it, and it remained in a fine film on her skin. She smelled her hands and made a face. The earth exuded a burnt odor and a faint scent of rotten eggs. Nothing grew out of it—no young trees and no weeds. No insect life was evident; no ants, bugs, or worms wiggled through the soil. An intense silence pervaded the wasteland. Joan heard no normal sounds of life. Deadness. She wondered what sort of cataclysm knocked them down. Was it the Impact? She didn’t know. They rested parallel to each other, aiming the same way. They seemed to be telling Joan the way to go through their ruin. She began running.

She kept the pace, just as she had practiced for the last seventeen years of her life. She left the dead trees behind her days ago but did her best to keep on the track they pointed: west.

What propelled her, she did not know. She was trying to outrun something. Her father and mother encompassed her thoughts. She had betrayed her mother in their own home, causing her death. Her father was loving and caring, and she lied to him, day after day. Despite what she told her father and told her friends, it would be ever more challenging for her to admit to the lies she told to herself, for those permitted her to survive. She didn’t fully grasp she would have to confront those issues, enduring who knows how many miles in the wilderness ahead of her.

18

S
he hoped Nox had given up and had returned to the Alliance. Slumping against a tree, she wiped sweat from her brow and relaxed in the cool of the shade. She retrieved a water bottle from her backpack and took a long drink. A lizard perched itself on a rock nearby, sunning itself and reminding her of Nox. It had been a week since she had seen them at the canyon. Since then she had kept a good lookout for him, scanning the horizon daily for any signs of human life. She always registered nothing.
Nothing
, she thought, rubbing her eyes against the glaring sun. No human life at all. She was growing dispirited—disheartened.
How much longer can this go on
? How much longer can
she
go on? Perhaps part of her wished Nox would find her and take her back. She was weary.

Then she thought of her parents. She pulled the photo of them from the pack and gazed at it for a minute. Bracing
herself, she stood and stretched her back and neck muscles, slipping the photo into her pants pocket. She took another drink. Her canteen was empty. Pulling out the other water bottle, she put it to her mouth, but it too was empty. It had been a couple of days since she’d last seen a stream or any water source. With the heat she must have drunk more than she realized. She had to find water.

After jogging in the extreme warmth, she had become parched. After a while, she came upon what appeared to be a worn path. Something about it—perhaps the irregular shape, she didn’t know what for sure—told Joan it was not made by humans. Was it an animal path? Thirst overpowered her, and she removed the backpack to try to squeeze another drop from the bottle.

Her backpack hung loosely over one shoulder, as she followed the trail. All she could think about was water. After a while, she propped the pack on her head to block her face from the sun. Soon, she distinctly heard the sound of water—could smell it. She quickened her pace. There it was ahead of her through the trees: a creek.

She broke into a full run. Six feet from the stream, something yanked on her leg, pulled her foot out from under her, and sent her flat on her face. Her backpack flung away from her.

The fall stunned her. Pain shot through her right ankle. She sat up and inspected it. The contraption was a wire trap, most likely meant for an animal. The wire wrapped tightly around her and extended on either side, where it connected to two trees opposite the trail. She pulled at the wire, and pain stabbed at her so that she cried out.

Her knife. The backpack.
Where was it?
It flew off her arm when she fell. She craned her head, looking around to find it. It lay in the water, many feet from her—one strap barely hooked on a rock. The backpack floated, bubbling up and down with the current.

She tweaked the wire again. No use. It just cut tighter into her ankle. She twisted around carefully and stretched out to one of the trees, hoping to untie the wire. The trees stood out of reach, and she involuntarily cried out again. Every time she moved, the wire cut deeper into her. It sliced right through her sock, which was red from blood, and embedded itself into her flesh.

She sat for a moment, thinking. A long stick lay on the ground within arm’s length. Leaning back toward the stream, she tried to get hold of the backpack with the stick. It reached. She manipulated the stick to the strap, ever so carefully. She winced and tears filled her eyes. Each movement she made, no matter how slight, tortured her leg. She got the stick under the strap and tugged cautiously. The pack moved, slipped off the stick, and floated downstream.

“No, please! NO!” she cried.

She watched in dismay as it drifted away and filled with water, soon to sink. All she had vanished before her. She had so little, and now…nothing.

Desperation took over. She looked for anything. Close by she spied a few small stones. She whacked at the wire with them, to no effect, except to cause it to tighten even more. She tugged and yanked on the wire even more, attempting to break it free from the trees. She wept, blood staining the ground under her foot.

She lay back and tried to relax, breathing deeply as Jack taught her. Thirst plagued her. The pleasant gurgling of the water taunted her. It was so close. She looked around and found a small branch with leaves on the ground near her. Picking it up, she stretched it over her head to the stream. It was just inches too short. She’d have to extend herself further. Her ankle throbbed in pain—bitter, piercing pain. She pulled back. Pain and thirst were two awful antagonists, vying for her attention. Thirst won for the moment. She steeled herself
and pursued the water again, stretching and biting her teeth against the anguish. The branch dipped into the precious liquid. She brought the leaves to her mouth and sucked the water off them. She repeated this a few times. It brought a measure of relief. She relaxed and breathed slower.

Was this the end? To die in an animal trap?
She took the photo of her parents out of her pants pocket and stared at it. After a while, she slipped it back.

The sun moved lower on the horizon, leaving her alone without warmth, without light. Her leg didn’t hurt as much. The throbbing decreased. She wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or bad. Sitting up and glancing at it, she winced as the movement brought a slice of pain. Blood covered her shoe. Her foot squished inside the drenched sock. Then she used the branch to get more water, repeating the method a few times.

She absently turned her head to her left side and gasped. Two feet away slithered a snake. She froze. It stopped and stared at her with its unblinking eyes. With her right hand, she groped on the ground near her for a rock, for a weapon, for anything. All the while she didn’t move her head. She kept staring at the snake, which she recognized as a rattlesnake.

The reptile reclined on the earth near her. It was not coiled—not ready to strike. The creature began to slither again—toward her. Its forked tongue licked in and out of its mouth. But it still wasn’t coiling to a striking position. Joan’s right hand found a rock—a small rock. She fingered it and wished it were bigger.

Steeling herself, she swung the rock over her body and smashed it on the snake’s head. She hit it, but it squirmed and twisted. Its fangs shot out. Poison droplets dangled from the ends of them. Joan used her left hand to grab its neck—or what one might describe as its neck. She caught hold an inch below the head. As she did that, she kept hitting with the rock,
trying desperately to keep the fangs and their poison away from her. The body of the snake writhed, and the beast flung wildly around, thrashing Joan in the shoulder and face.

The power—the intensity—of the monster shocked her. It had appeared such a graceful, slender, and fluid creature. But it was all muscle. Strong muscle. Joan did not let go. She pounded again and again. Eventually, she felt its strength lessen. Its body stopped flinging at her and began slapping against the ground. Joan continued hitting the head, stopping when she realized she pulverized the head completely.

She lay back and caught her breath. In the fast approaching darkness, she couldn’t make out if the fangs had punctured her hands, if the animal had poisoned her. The cadaver lay so close to her. With a stick, she shoved at the animal, pushing it away from her. But she couldn’t quite push it far enough. Its carcass lay a few feet from her, and its malodorous smell invaded her nostrils.

She rested, staring up at the branches of the tree. The small flowers on the leaves changed color in the setting sun. The white blossoms now appeared gray. In the blackness of the rapidly approaching night, a chill seeped into her. She maintained her body warmth as best she could, pulling her arms around her and trying to crawl into a fetal position. Her leg throbbed. When she reached a good position, she stopped moving and listened to the sounds of the forest.

They seemed different from the last couple weeks—more threatening. She was totally helpless, and every noise from the forest sounded sinister. Each one meant danger. The stars were barely visible through the trees above her. No moon shone. She drifted in and out of sleep, waking often, at every little sound, and shivering from the cold—and maybe from fear. Once, she heard a twig snap. She jerked her head toward the sound, clutching a small rock. Then she heard nothing. No further sound. No movement. She thought of the dead snake near her.

The following morning she awoke, and the sun shone brightly. It couldn’t have been too late in the day, but the heat already accosted her. It was either terribly cold or hot in this part of the continent.

Using the branch, she reached out to the stream and brought the precious water to her mouth. As she did she spied the carcass of the snake. It moved, rising and falling. Staring in fear, she realized it was covered in ants. The black insects were devouring it.

Disgusted, she turned back to the water, trying to satiate her thirst. After a few dips of the branch in the creek, she pulled out the photo of her parents. Looking at them gave her strength.

Something tickled her leg. She sat to inspect it and gasped. Ants crawled over her ankle. Their black bodies coming together, seeming to form one large black slithery animal, gorging itself on her blood and her flesh. Madly, Joan swiped at them. Screams escaped her lips. The pain came back with a vengeance. As she brushed at the insects, she wept, but no tears came—she was so dehydrated.

Abruptly, someone stood beside her. She couldn’t make him out; the sun shone from behind him, blinding her. He held something in his hands. Joan saw the glint of the sun on the object—a knife. Frantically, she tried to get away, yanking hard at the trap. The wire cut in deeper. Pain shot up her leg and up her spine. Then blackness.

19

J
oan regained consciousness in a small clearing with a fire burning in the middle. It was night. She was lying on the ground, her head propped against a log. A colorful blanket covered her. Her one shoe and the boot sat next to her. Across the fire six feet away, a man sat, staring at her.

She had never seen anyone like him in her life. Fear shot through her, panic. He must be a barbarian, like she learned about. His skin had a ruddy complexion, darker than hers, but not near as dark as Kaleb’s. His black hair, perfectly straight, fell long upon his shoulders. No men in the Alliance had long hair. The fashion was short. Something hung in his hair—a feather woven into it. She didn’t move. Maybe he wouldn’t notice she had awoken.

The man stood up. He wore pants and sandals but no shirt. Joan was not accustomed to seeing shirtless men; even at the
Center, they were always fully dressed. He looked about thirty years old, with smooth, taut skin. The firelight danced, yellow and gold, on his body, casting shadows to and fro. His left arm was badly scarred—a burn. The disfigurement ran up the length of his arm to his shoulder and neck.

Joan could barely see into his eyes, but what she saw calmed her. While Garth’s eyes displayed a lack of humanity, this man’s eyes presented the opposite. They gleamed dark, like Kaleb’s, but more brownish and coffee-tinted than black. There was something soothing at them. But all the same, dread of him consumed her. He was a stranger, and he was different.

He walked over, reaching into a bag that hung at his belt. He squatted down next to her and extended his hand. She recoiled in alarm. He handed her the photo. She remembered. She held it when he came upon her in the trap.

Joan cautiously took the picture. Too frightened to speak, she tried to say, “Thank you.” Nothing came out. Her mouth was parched.

She sat up against the log, grimacing from the sting in her ankle. He pulled the blanket back from her feet. Leaves wrapped around her wound, oozing out a gooey fluid. Although the leg ached, the liquid salve offered relief. Her feet were near the fire, and the warmth spread through them. Matches had been in her backpack, but Joan had been too afraid to ever use them to make a fire. She hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself.