The day after: An apocalyptic morning (103 page)

              Anna could not see the two guard hills through the night vision as they came up to the Bell Road offramp - they were well out of the range of her meager camera - but she could feel them, could sense them rising up directly in front of her. She felt so horribly exposed. Were they really going to walk directly below those four guards? Were they really going to try to navigate through the maze of sandbags and barbed wire that lay in front of those hills? Did they really think that this crazy plan had a chance in hell of succeeding? Had it not been for the fact that Kelly's dead body was lying in the living room back at Bracken's home, she would have aborted the escape attempt as too dangerous. But there was no choice now, was there? They had to give it a shot.

              With sweating palms, with a hammering heart, she pushed onward, Jean behind her. Soon they were passing into the chasm that the Interstate had created between the hills. The four guards were less than three hundred feet above them now. Both women slowed their pace to a near-crawl, knowing that it kept them in the danger zone longer but also knowing that gingerly, careful steps would help keep them from stumbling and making unintended noise. The guards up there were equipped with powerful spotlights hooked up to automotive batteries. Though they did not routinely sweep the area below them, they would surely light up the area if they heard a noise.

              At last they came out the other side of the hills and came to the entrance of the sandbag maze. The opening was four feet wide, a small gap between six-foot walls of sandbags, with rolls of razor wire stretching off in both directions to the side. Anna looked at it carefully, examining the ground for any sort of trip wires or other noise-making booby traps. She had never heard Bracken mention that such things were part of the defenses but she certainly was not going to rule it out. She saw nothing of the sort.

              "We're at the maze, Jean," she whispered as softly as she could, barely loud enough for Jean herself to hear. "Tighten up on me a little. Hold onto my shoulders with both hands and turn when I turn."

              "Okay," Jean whispered back.

              "And don't trip over my feet."

              "Okay."

              Anna eased forward, Jean holding onto her like a shadow. Slowly, moving at the speed of a snail, she entered the maze, staying as close to the center between the rows of sandbags as she could. The view through the camera was two-dimensional and it was a little difficult judging distance for this reason but by the time she reached the second turn, she was used to it. Step by step she walked forward, always cognizant of the guards directly above and behind her and what would become of them if they were discovered. She turned to the right, to the left, back to the right again, doubled back towards town for a few feet and then doubled back towards the east. In all there were more than twenty separate corners to navigate.

              At last, after what seemed an eternity but which was actually only twenty minutes, they came to the final turn. In the viewfinder Anna saw a stretch of Interstate stretching off into the darkness beyond her range. It was one of the finest things she'd ever seen before. She stopped for a moment in the last four feet, again looking carefully on the ground for any trip wires or other devices. Seeing nothing she started slowly forward. Six steps brought her through the barrier of the sandbags and razor wire and they were out. Though they were still within easy view of the guards above, and though they would still need to step quietly for quite some time, they were actually out of Auburn and on their way to freedom.

              Part 13

              It was thirty minutes before dark when Bracken reentered Barnes' office. The discovery of the death of Kelly and the apparent escape by Jean and Anna had taken place twelve hours before and Bracken had spent the day with a full platoon of soldiers trying to track his traitorous wives down so they could be hanged.

              "No sign at all huh?" Barnes asked as he looked at his wet and muddy and now wifeless subordinate. He had been following the results of the search on a radio set on his desk.

              "Nothing," Bracken confirmed. "We went all the way to the first mudfall to the east and saw nothing at all. Fourth platoon went all the way to the edge of the valley on the west and they saw nothing either. First and second platoons checked to the north and south, even though those are the least likely directions they might have gone, and again, nothing."

              "There's no way they could have made it more than a mile outside of town in the dark," Barnes said confidently. "Even if they did manage to get out somehow, they would have been forced to camp just outside the range of the guards' visual zone until sunrise. It would've been impossible for them to navigate or move in the darkness."

              "I agree, sir," Bracken said. "If they were out there, we would have seen them or picked up some sign of them. We have no evidence whatsoever that they even made it outside the perimeter. How could they even have made their way through any of our defenses in the dark? It's impossible."

              "So that leaves us with the conclusion that they are still in town somewhere," Barnes said.

              "That's right," Bracken told him. "They're probably hiding in one of the abandoned houses or in the industrial area. With your permission, I'll start a building to building search of the entire town at first light."

              "Permission granted. We'll probably find them by noon tomorrow at the latest. We'll hang them before dinner if that's the case."

              "Yes, sir."

              "Don't blame yourself for this, Bracken," Barnes told him reassuringly. "No one can tell when their bitches are going to do something stupid like this. They're secretive little cunts, the bitches, and they plot against us without our even knowing about it."

              "There must be some way to prevent that," Bracken said. "After all, we've got to maintain order in town."

              "We'll have to come down a little harder on them it would seem. I think that, starting with this escape, we should punish all of them for the offense."

              "Punish all of them?"

              "Yes," Barnes said, nodding as the thought grew more detailed in his mind. "We'll punish them all and try to make them realize that their actions affect more than just themselves. I will order tonight that every woman in town be beaten by their husbands for the offense committed by your wives. In addition to that, I will pull three names of women at random and order that they be hanged."

              Bracken raised his eyebrows a bit. "Hang three other bitches at random because of what my bitches did? I don't think the guys will like that too much if it's their bitch that gets picked."

              "I'm sorry the guys won't like it, but they'll just have to put up with it. We'll set the precedent right here and right now to all of the bitches just what the consequences are for trying to escape. It's harsh, but I think it's the only way we'll get these bitches to see that they are affecting more than themselves."

              "I understand, sir," Bracken said.

              Contrary to Barnes and Bracken's assumptions, Jean and Anna had made it well past the mudfall by the time the light returned to the sky. Well aware of the dragnet that would be pursuing them, they had recovered as much food as they could find from the landfill - more than twenty-seven cans - and had then moved at as quick of a pace down the Interstate as they could physically maintain. Of course both of these operations - food recovery and escape run - were aided greatly by the use of the night vision on the camera. With three long-life batteries to burn, there had been more than enough power to last them until morning. They had reached the mudfall by 5:00 AM that morning and, continuing on without pausing, had been nearly two miles into the woods on the trek around it when their escape was finally discovered.

              They had not stopped for anything but bathroom breaks and a simple breakfast at sunrise (such as it was with the sun still hidden behind thick clouds). They had simply stashed the video camera and its one remaining battery back in their packs and continued on, their pace somewhat faster as they trudged over logs and up hills and through gullies. By the time the pursuing troops made it to the mudfall at around 1:30 that afternoon, Anna and Jean were back on the Interstate on the other side of it starting to feel, for the first time, that they had safely gotten away.

              "I don't think we left any tracks that they could follow or any other sign that we were even out here," Anna said as they began walking east on the paved surface once again. "Chances are that they'll conclude we never left town in the first place. They'll probably waste at least two days searching for us there before it occurs to them to look this way again. By then we'll be far too far in front of them for there to be any hope of catching up with us."

              "So you think we're safe?" Jean, who had been obsessively looking over her shoulder the entire time, asked hopefully.

              "Safe from the Auburn men," Anna corrected. "However, there's still the great unknown out here to deal with; and we still only have twenty-six cans of food to last us all the way to Garden Hill."

              "We'll make it," Jean said. "I just know we will. The hard part is over now."

              All afternoon they had marched onward, coming to the second of the major mudfalls at about 4:30, just as the light started to fade towards darkness. They pushed another quarter mile into the woods and then, at long last, decided to make camp for the night. Here Anna gave up her unspoken leadership and passed it on to Jean, who had done a fair share of camping and hunting with her father and brothers before the comet. Jean was able to quickly build a lean-to against the side of a group of fallen trees. It was a lean-to that was both larger and better constructed than those that Skip and company had made on their initial trips through the woods.

              "Let's get some sleep," Jean told her fellow conspirator once the makeshift structure was complete.

              "I'm up for that," Anna agreed. "I can't believe you were able to build something that's dry inside."

              "Mostly dry anyway," Jean said. She opened up the plastic bag that she had been using as her pack, pulling out the dry blankets inside. "Put the plastic bags down first," she said, demonstrating what she meant. "That will keep the water on the ground from getting us. Then, if we take off our clothes, our blankets will stay somewhat dry for tomorrow."

              "Pretty smart, Jean," Anna said, repeating her motions with her own bag. "Are you sure you haven't been to college?"

              Within minutes their wet clothes were stripped off and stored and their naked bodies were cuddled up together under the thick blankets.

              "We're free," Jean whispered, pulling Anna closer to her.

              "Yes," Anna said, soaking up the warmth of her friend's body. "We're free at last."

              Exhausted, both were sound asleep in less than five minutes.

              January 1 dawned just like any other day. The coming of the new year marked the 80th day since the impact of Comet  Stendell. Though there was still no sign of the sun through the thick cloud cover and though the moderate but depressingly steady rainfall continued to drop without let-up from those clouds, the spirits in Garden Hill were at perhaps an all-time high since that fateful day. They were now quite safe from the specter of starvation. More than six tons of rice and wheat, as well as more than six thousand cans of chicken noodle soup and more than four thousand cans of spinach, had been recovered from the abandoned train and stored. Mealtimes were starting to get a bit boring despite the best efforts of Sara, Stacy, and the other kitchen staff to dress up the new staples of their diet, but at least there were mealtimes every day.

              In addition, the social climate of Garden Hill was undergoing a rapid metamorphosis. Though Skip and Jack and their various wives had been the ones to pioneer the concept of polygamous marriage, the concept had not received widespread acceptance in town until Paul, Janet, and Sherrie took the plunge. Though Skip was respected greatly in town for all that he had done, his reputation would always be associated with rebellion and radicalism. And though Jack was rapidly gaining the respect due him as an adult, many of the townspeople associated him with the burnings of youth. Paul, on the other hand, was considered about as straight-laced and normal as a person could get. Since Paul made it publicly known that he was participating in such a marriage, it was concluded almost unanimously that such a thing must be the wave of the future. As of the morning of January 1, four more polygamous marriages had been declared and two more seemed inevitable.

              "So I was thinking," said Mick that afternoon as he sat in the cramped cargo area of the helicopter next to Paul.

              "A dangerous thing," said Skip from the pilot's seat, producing a dutiful laugh from all on board.

              They were two hours into a recon mission to examine the contents of all of the trucks that had been abandoned on the Interstate between Garden Hill and the snowline. So far they had dropped Mick and Paul down five times next to vehicles and five times they had drawn blanks as far as anything useful being in the trucks. The first one had been empty. The second had contained sixteen thousand heads of lettuce that had long since spoiled. The third had been full of bags of steer manure - which might be somewhat useful once the sun came back out. The fourth had been empty. The fifth had contained two thousand cases of Sprite soda.