Harmonic: Resonance (20 page)

35 | A way out

My eyes opened to something foreign in the dull blur—a bright red square, glowing in stark contrast to the natural pastel colors of tree bark, moss, and dirt. I stared at the shape, trying to shake my mind from a dream of Sam and our father, while my damp body shook in response to the cool morning air. All around were colorful markers and sparkling diamonds. I blinked and rubbed my eyes against the arm that had been my pillow. The red blur resolved, taking the form of one of our gas cans. The sparkling diamonds were something much more precious.

One of our packs hung from a low tree branch farther up the hill. Its contents had spilled, a runway of color, of canned food, medical supplies, and glistening bottles of water. The bedroll hung like a dead dog’s tongue from the open mouth of the pack. It was Powell’s pack, recognizable by the red first-aid kit still strapped to its side. I began my crawl toward the pack and the promise of food, water, warmth, and first aid. I fought the temptation to veer off course for closer items, knowing it would do little more than waste what strength I had. Once I reached the pack, I would have all the supplies I needed to quench the fires, and my thirst.

By the time I reached the pack, I was no longer cold, but tired and longing for the safety and comfort the sleeping bag had come to represent during my climb. My head throbbed a silent alarm, warning of critical dehydration, while my stomach churned at the sight of water, now within reach. A sudden and excruciating pain shot through my left arm as I brought it up to unscrew the bottle cap.

With my teeth clamped around the cap, my cries were dampened to a whimper. I spat out the cap and drank greedily, spilling more than I knew I could afford and drinking too fast to keep it down. As I coughed it all back out, my body replied with a plethora of pain, chastising me for my greed and impatience.

I tried again to cry for help, but the pain in my torso cried louder for me to stop. While I sipped the remaining water, I surveyed the landscape—littered with our precious cargo. I thought of Haley and Powell.
Had Powell been thrown from the truck? Had the others survived?
I tried to push the images away and busied myself with the task of unhooking the pack from one tree limb using the dead, severed limb of another.

The first-aid kid was full and stocked beyond the level two description printed inside. Even if I could not fix all that was wrong with me, there would at least be something to help with the pain.

I had to remove the lace to get my foot out of the boot. The sock was stuck to my foot and crusted with dried blood. I slowly peeled the sock off, revealing my swollen, purple foot, and retrieved the peroxide and cotton swabs. The skin was grazed and raw, and it looked like blood had pooled and settled beneath the skin of my heel. I did my best to wrap the ankle and squeezed it back into my boot. Looking down at my left shoulder, the skin was stretched tight over what seemed like a second joint. It was dislocated, and the thought of trying to
pop
it back in place came with a wave of nausea that threatened to expel the small amount of precious water I’d so far managed to retain. My left elbow was swollen too, and any attempt to bend it was met with a sickening, burning pain.

My mind returned to the crash, being thrown from the truck bed, clipping my elbow, and being sent helpless through the air, through leaves and branches—colliding with limbs, slowed by the bending of some, sent reeling and spinning like a ragdoll by others. I had survived by chance or luck—good luck or bad—and my hopes for the rest of the group diminished further with each part remembered. The man in the back of the passing truck had leveled his gun at us, at Sarah and Sean. I closed my eyes and tried to hold back the tears but couldn’t.

I continued on, dragging the pack, with what items I had repacked or collected on the way—some water and food, a poorly rolled sleeping bag, and whatever else I could manage. I stopped before the ridge, afraid to crest the hill and to prove the validity of my fear that everyone else was gone. I leaned on the bedroll, trying to get my breath back, trying to work up the courage to face the wreckage beyond the crest, hoping somehow they had made it, but knowing there was little chance they had.
If they were gone, would there be any point going on? Would I want to live if I was the only one, and if it was just me, how would I make it back to the house with only one leg, one arm, no vehicle, and limited supplies?

At the bottom of the pack was a fabric holster, and inside that holster was a handgun. Gary had said that it was a war issue 1911. If the rest were gone, perhaps that would be the only item I needed, but where would that send me? The dead were returned to our world, and Hell’s creatures waited at our gates. Could there be anything worse than the seemingly inevitable and bloody end that would devour us all soon enough?

***

The sun blazed, high and unobstructed in a clear blue sky. The road was too hot for more than brief contact against the bare skin of my forearm, which left little choice but for me to keep moving or return to the shade beneath the trees. The pack repeatedly slipped from my shoulder as I crawled on my hand and knees, until I relented to let it drag behind my wrist. My knees bumped against the pack, and the pack bumped against my arm with each shuffled step, but the pack also served as a place to rest when the crawl became too much.

I leaned over the pack and pulled a bottle from the side pocket. While I drank, I stared at the road where it curved around the cliff. Beyond that corner would be our truck, or what was left of it, as well as what was left of the people I had come to know and love. I was gripped by a sudden terror as thoughts of our truck evolved to include the
other
truck.
What if the other truck and those men were still there?

I worked to stay the panic, rationalizing it had been more than twenty-four hours. I knew they would have taken what they could and left as quickly as they’d come, but I could not shake my fear. The realization it had been more than twenty-four hours, and in that time no one had called for me or come to find me, was enough of a sign no one else had made it, but it was not enough to prepare me for what I saw.

The mangled truck was up on its side—part of the window frame was caved in—and what glass remained was coated with dried blood. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the scene to change, unable to accept what I’d seen. I had to force myself to look again, just in case there was anyone left alive, but what I saw of Sarah, what was left of Sarah, was not enough to carry her back to her feet.

She lay in a tangle of blood-matted hair, behind the draped arms of her husband, slumped and held above her by the taut seatbelt. If I hadn’t known who was driving, I would not have recognized Sean by what remained of his face. They were both dead. We had come to find them, tried to save them, and had lost everything in the process. They had not been killed by ghosts or demons, but by men.

I couldn’t bring myself to look inside the cab. The thought of seeing Haley’s lifeless body was more than I could take. All of my strength leaked and poured from my eyes, and I collapsed over the pack. I reached into the pack, fumbled for the fabric holster, and shook the handgun free. It would take only a single pull of the trigger, with the barrel pressed against my temple, and all of this would be gone—the pain and the nightmare would be over, but I needed to see Powell first. I had been thrown from the truck, and perhaps Powell had been thrown too.

I dragged myself on my knees and forearm, the gun still clutched in my one good hand. Stinging hot tears filled my eyes and fell to the road as I crawled. The first thing I saw was the rifle and then the strap still curled around his hand. I edged around the truck and saw his arm, thick with blood, and I braced myself for the sight of his body, but there was no body.

I stared at the severed arm and at the dark red strip of road, flecked with bits of bone and fat, and I began to shake. Between incoherent pleas, came a murmur, a muted moan that seemed foreign and detached. I heard the word Powell sobbed over and over. It was my voice, but from somewhere far away. I wanted it to be over. I willed my body to move and rolled onto my back, freeing the shaking hand that held the 1911. With my eyes closed tight and my breath held, I pressed the barrel against my temple.

Over the loud thumping pulse in my head, I heard the muffled cry once again, but it was not coming from me. The whimpered vowel sounds were coming from inside the truck.

“Haley?”

I gritted my teeth to the pain as I rolled back onto my stomach, and rose onto my knees and arm. I crawled to the cab as fast as I could and peered inside, but I couldn’t see her. Shattered glass cubes dug into my back as I wriggled over the twisted window frame, while the sharp salt and copper smell of blood filled my nose and lungs, causing me to cough and gag.

I found her, wedged down between the tangle of legs, trapped under the bodies of her parents and camouflaged by their dried blood. I rolled onto the dislocated shoulder, shrieked through my teeth at the pain, and extended my right hand to find hers. Haley’s eyes opened, bright white against the dried blood over her face. Pink lines striped her cheeks where steady streams of tears had carved their own path through the scabbed mask.

“Oh, Haley.” I took her hand in mine.

She looked like a wild animal in a cage, terrified and staring back at me through the cloth and flesh bars, but seemingly unable to recognize me. I tried to push and pull at Sean’s leg, but the dash was skewed, pinning the limb in place. Haley was trapped and I was too weak, too hurt to offer her a way out.

The 1911 sat on the road, just outside the window frame, in sight, but just out of reach. I motioned toward the gun, but Haley held on tight to my hand and closed her eyes.

36 | PRESS

As Haley and I lay together, trapped by more than just our need for living human contact, I thought about Powell, about all we had gone through together to survive this far, and what it had all been for. I thought about my father and brother. Perhaps, Sam was still out there somewhere, alive and trying to get home.

Beyond the 1911, the only way I could think to free Haley was to unbuckle Sean’s seatbelt, let him fall, and have her climb up and over the body—up and out through the twisted gap where the driver window used to be.

I gave her hand a squeeze and mouthed the plan to her wild eyes, asking her to nod if she understood. I couldn’t tell if she was reading my words or looking through me to the body of her twice-dead mother. Perhaps, to Haley, the reassuring hand that held her own was not mine, but Sarah’s, trying to wake her from the nightmare, trying to shake her from the state of shock. There was no way to raise my voice to anything more than a whisper to her eyes. I squeezed and shook her hand and eventually pulled mine free.

I shuffled back, trying all the while to forget what, or
who
, it was that I now crawled over, imagining only roots and tree limbs digging into my back as I climbed. I twisted onto my bad side, and the sudden rush of pain seemed to strangle the truck’s interior to a narrow, blurred tunnel, ending with a small red button with embossed letters that read, PRESS.

I reached up and pushed the button to release the seatbelt. It clicked, but the clip remained wedged, and the belt was still locked in placed. I struggled at the clip and pushed at the body, but each attempt to push Sean’s body away added pressure and pain to my own. I slid back down to settle against the passenger door, brought my knee up to my chest, and pressed my good foot against Sean’s shoulder. I gave a shove and the seatbelt lock disengaged. The body fell, the belt zipped, clicked, and locked again, suspending the grotesque remnants of my friend’s face just inches from my own. As I turned away, he kissed my cheek before sliding free of the belt to rest lifeless on top of me. I gritted my teeth around an uncontrollable shriek. The pain was immense and came in waves, each one delineated by a cold shiver through my body.

I took several breaths in rapid succession, each one sobbed back out. I craned my neck, peering around the body to find Haley.

“Can you get out?” I managed through my teeth, but her eyes were filled with tears and blind to my words.

The sickly dull aches joined down my left side, each seam stitched and cauterized with sharp, red-hot needles that seemed to stab through the bone. I stretched out my arm and fingers to find hers. Haley looked back at me and painted a pink stripe across her eyes with her sleeve.

I struggled to control my mouth around the words and to keep from wincing while I spoke. “I need you to try to climb up and over. Okay?”

For a moment, she simply stared back at me.

“Haley?”

Her lip began to quiver as her eyes searched the confines of the truck cab, as though waking up and seeing the carnage for the first time, and then she began to climb. The extra weight, pressing down on my shoulder and arm, was more than I could handle. Bright sparks flew past my eyes, dancing erratically while I screamed. The truck interior darkened as she squeezed through the mangled frame, pushing herself up with one foot on the body of her father and the other on the steering wheel.

I heard the tiny patter of her feet on the door of the truck, and the slap of her shoes on the road outside, and then it was quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the mouth that had kissed my cheek, the jaw and cheekbone exposed in places under a gelatinous red wax. His lifeless body seemed to exhale a last breath, a cold breath that permeated my skin and traveled down the length of my body. A shudder became a shake that wouldn’t stop, and pain turned to panic as I tried to pull myself free. I was trapped inside the same cage Haley had been trapped in for more than a day, a cage made from the bodies of her dead parents. Again, I was somehow detached. I could hear myself crying, giving in to bouts of hysteria, while my mind wandered back to my own father. I was staring down at the mannequin, modeled and dressed to look like my father, laid out on the drop sheet that would be his coffin.