Ashes (28 page)

“Are you okay?” Sarah said. She halted as Ghost snuffled around a tree. “You've been really quiet all night.”

“Just tired.” Alex hunched her shoulders as the wind forked up a fistful of icy snow and sent it whirling in a sparkling arabesque in the light of their torch. She could see the bulky silhouette of their guard a few steps ahead and the flash of snow splintering the harsh white light of his lantern.

“I'm really sorry about what happened,” Sarah said.

“Happened?”

“Yes. At the courthouse? That's all over town—about how you recognized that man, Harlan? Peter told me that Harlan left that little girl alone out there.”

“Ellie. Yeah,” Alex said, a little ashamed now, because she'd not been thinking about Ellie but Kincaid. He might call himself a country doctor, but he was sharp enough to guess about the monster. She supposed she could've lied; there was no way Kincaid could look inside her brain, after all. But telling him had been kind of a relief.

What he'd said about the monster was interesting, too:
You don't know that the tumor's gone or dead or dormant. Maybe the Zap shorted it out. Or maybe all those EMPs organized it somehow, made it functional instead of destructive, like another lobe of your brain.

Or maybe both. She recalled how sick—chemo-sick—she'd felt right after the attacks. She'd assumed the Zap caused that, but her brain was chock-full of PEBBLES loaded with a new and experimental drug. Barrett hadn't been able to get the PEBBLES to dump their payload; the light probes hadn't worked. But light was just a visible form of electromagnetic radiation—a different kind of EMP. So maybe the Zap—from all those EMPs—was strong enough to trigger the PEBBLES. The monster had either died or altered in some way, and so had she.

She could share none of this with Sarah. “It's okay. I mean, it's not. I understand why Chris didn't want to go after Ellie, but …” She let out a breath that the wind stole. “Doesn't make it feel any better.”

Sarah was quiet as they waited for Ghost to finish. “I think they're doing the best they can,” she said finally. “You know, to give us homes and stuff.”

“That's not the same as being happy or free.”

“People did try to kill you,” Sarah pointed out. “I'll bet a bunch of them would kill all of us if they could.”

Larry:
You're an endangered species.
“Yeah, but then who'd be left? Lena's right. They need us. I mean, have you seen some of these guys? They're
really
old. Eventually, they're going to, you know, break down. They need us to take care of them.”

“Well,” said Sarah, “I don't know if that's the only—”

There came the sudden distant stutter of gunfire. The shots were very quick, nearly overlapping.
Rifles
, Alex thought. Ghost flinched, tried to scurry between Alex's legs, and only succeeded in winding his leash around her calves. At the end of the block, she saw their guard hurrying back to them.

“You girls about done?” he asked. His own dog—a long-haired mutt—swished around Alex and then stood patiently as the puppy nipped at the other dog's neck and did the
I'm-so-thrilled-to-see-you
squiggle.

“Who are they shooting at?” asked Alex.

The guard simultaneously shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Could be some Changed, but they don't bother us much anymore. Ten to one, it's raiders. Night's when they try to come in through the woods. Stupid, you ask me.”

“Why?” asked Alex.

“Because
they
come out at night, too,” Sarah said.

“Double the risk, double your fun,” said the guard, doing the cold man's two-step. “We got our perimeter, which means they got to make it through the Zone, avoid the Changed, and slip in through the perimeter without us catching them. Only way to do that is come out by day, hunker down in the Zone, and wait. Ones we don't get at night, we get come daylight.”

Well, that answered the question of the shots Alex had heard that morning. The image of Rule's guards combing the woods to pick off strays bothered her. She bet Peter wouldn't have a problem with it. Would Chris? Was he out there now?

So what if he is?
She felt a nip of impatience.
Who cares what Chris thinks or where he is?

Still, the thought nagged at her, and what made her even angrier was what she felt when she pictured Chris taking risks out there in the dark.

Worried.

Back at the house, Jess was sewing by candlelight, and seemed unconcerned. Alex figured she was probably used to the nightly gunfight at the O.K. Corral. She and Sarah said good night to Jess and the guard, who seemed happy enough to thaw out by the woodstove.

“That dog stays downstairs,” Jess said when Ghost tried following Alex. She handed Alex and Sarah red rubber hot-water bottles and a lit candle, then bent to scoop up the puppy. “Oh, aren't you a brute?” she scolded, and then laughed as the puppy's tongue darted for her chin. “He'll be fine in his bed down here. If you girls want to double up, though, you might be warmer.”

“Uh,” said Alex, and glanced at Sarah, who shrugged. “It's okay with me,” said Sarah.

“Good. You should both stay in Alex's room then. It's right over the kitchen,” said Jess.

Pushing through the anvil of cold air solidly wedged on the stairs was an act of will. It was so cold, their breath steamed in the light of the single candle Jess had given them. Tori's bedroom door was closed. A towel-covered tray of food was still squared before Lena's door. When she'd come back after her job at the laundry—Alex didn't envy Lena one bit—Lena had gone straight upstairs and refused to come down.

Crouching, Sarah peeked under the towel. “She hasn't touched it,” she whispered.

“She'll just bite your head off. Come on, she'll eat when she's hungry,” Alex hissed back, thinking only of diving beneath the covers. Even with the hot water bottle tucked around her feet, there was no way she was sleeping without socks and long johns.

Sarah lingered a moment longer, then followed. After they'd washed—the icy water gave Alex brain freeze when she brushed her teeth—then swiftly changed and crawled under a double feather quilt, Sarah whispered, “She's really not so bad, you know.”

“What?” Being in bed with Sarah had dredged up thoughts of Ellie, and Alex had to think a second. “Who, Lena? Only if you don't mind permanent PMS.”

“She had it really rough before. She doesn't talk about it much.”

“Did she really run away from here?”

“Yeah, about three weeks after she got here. She was trying to go back up north. I think she's still got family up near Oren.”

Amish country
, she thought, remembering the sign she'd seen months ago at that Quik-Mart. “Wow. Like, how old?”

“Old enough to be dead, young enough to be Changed. Her mom's dead, for sure. I think her dad died years ago. She said that she, her mom, and a couple brothers were living with her grandparents. They might be alive.”

“Then how'd she end up here if she still had family?”

“I never asked, but I don't think she liked home much. Anyway, when she ran, she only got about a mile into the Zone—”

“Zone?” The guard had said that, too.

“Yeah, like ‘buffer zone,' the cushion between Rule and everybody else. The dogs caught her. That's another reason she hates them so much.”

“A mile's still pretty far. That means she had to slip an escort, too.”

“Well, she got pretty friendly with the guards. I think she bribed one by, you know …”

“No, I—” And then she got it. “Oh, that's just gross.”

“Some of these guys are gross,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “They only
look
like grandpas. Anyway, that's why Jess always has to be around when the older guys come in. If a guy our age visits, though, she leaves so we can, you know, talk and stuff. They want us to get to know those guys.”

“What happened to the guard that Lena … you know …”

“They Banned him, like they did with that guy you recognized.”

“And people just nicely decide not to sneak back in?”

“I guess when they know they'll be shot, they decide not to.”

“No way.”

“Way. Reverend Yeager's really strict about it. Like, once he's decided you're Banned, that's it. There are a lot of guards in the woods.”

“Like, walking around?” She wasn't sure she'd want to be out there after dark, even with a rifle.

Sarah shook her head. “Tree stands. You have to know where to look. Even then, they move around, so you can't predict where

they'll be.”

“You know a lot about this.”

“Oh. Well … Peter and I are … we talk.” The way Sarah said that, Alex thought they maybe did a lot more than just talk—in which case, Tori was in for a major disappointment.

“So what do you have to do to get permission to leave?” asked Alex.

“Why would anyone want to?”

“Well,” Alex said, momentarily flustered, “what if you want to try and find family or something? I mean, if I wanted to.”

“Oh, we'll never get permission. They got us, they're going to keep us.”

Rule, Alex thought, was like a commercial for an insecticide: roaches check in, but they don't check out. “And you're okay with that?”

“Well, sure,” said Sarah. “I mean, it's not like we've got a ton of choices.”

That made her think of something Lena had mentioned that made no sense. “Is that what they mean by Chosen? Like, is it the same as Spared?”

“No. Chosen means that someone picks you.”

“Picks you?”

“Yeah.” A pause. “A guy.”

“A guy?”

“Yeah. A guy, you know, decides … that he wants … you know …”

“What?” Alex said, much louder than she intended. “They
give
us to a guy? To go live with him?”

“Yeah, but not with any of the old ones,” Sarah said reasonably. “They give us to guys our age. One of them picks one of us, and if the Council says it's okay, then we go live with him. We get our own house, which is way better than here. Anyway, the idea is we live together and get to know each other.” She paused. “It's like that old Amish thing. You know, bundling? Only we get to live together, not just get in the same bed.”

Neither sounded good. “Are you serious? You're serious. Are we … if a guy picks us, do they expect us to, you know,
sleep
with him?”

“If we want to, I guess. It would be normal. Not right away, of course …” Sarah faltered. “No one's supposed to force us. But … sure. I mean, that's what people living together do.”

No, that's what people in love do. Even if they lock you in some guy's house, they can't make you
feel
that way.
“And they've done this to some girls already? It's only been a couple of months.”

She felt Sarah nod. “I think they were doing it before for a real long time. All I know is no one's asked to go back. The Council says you can if you want to, but no one has. I mean, think about it. You get your own house. You make up your own rules … well, pretty much. It's not like you get to go wherever you want, but it's not safe outside Rule anyway, so who cares?”

My God, no matter what Kincaid said, it
was
like a cult. “So no one has ever refused.”

“Well, I think Lena was worried that this one guy was going to ask.” Sarah sighed. “It was Peter, okay?”

“I thought Tori liked Peter.”

“Tori.” A snort. “Peter is
so
not interested. Greg's got this complete crush on her, though. It's kind of embarrassing, you know? Like a seventh grader asking out a senior.”

“So what happened with Lena and Peter?”

“He started hanging around a lot and asking to walk her places … you know.”

“Like a date?”

“About as close as you get to one in Rule, yeah. I think that's how she figured out which guard was working where. After they brought her back, Peter was so mad, he wanted her Banned, but you'd have to pretty much murder someone for that to happen to one of us, and even then I'm not sure the Reverend would do it. We're really valuable.”

“What if we say no?”

“Well, I wouldn't say no to Peter,” Sarah said. “And if you're smart, you won't say no to Chris either.”

Sarah fell asleep soon after. Alex stared into the shadows on the ceiling, her brain going like a runaway train.

She had been so stupid. How could she not have seen this? This was why people kept saying that she—and every other girl—was so valuable: because a girl could be paired up with a guy. Hell, the way things were going, maybe a girl would end up paired with more than one.

Because they were valuable. Because they could make babies.

It really was the end of the world as she had known it.

Rule wasn't a sanctuary.

It was a prison.

But Sarah was wrong. Alex had not one, not two, but
three
choices.

One: She could go along with the rules and hope that some guy who wasn't totally gross picked her. Maybe Chris, for that matter.

Two: She could make some noise. Her father had trained her well. She was easily as good a shot as any of the guys on patrol and maybe better than some. Riding couldn't be that tough. So she could get herself assigned to a patrol. She did have something to offer, after all, and her super-sense—if, say, she told Chris or Peter—would come in handy. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd do if she actually had to shoot someone who wasn't Changed. On the other hand, if she ran into another Harlan, that might not be such a problem. Anyway, the point was to get out of Rule. So, once she'd been on a couple patrols and they loosened up, she could just ride on out—and not come back.

Three: She could grab her parents' ashes and run like hell. Which would, as it happened, be pretty much coming full circle, picking up where she'd left off when this whole nightmare started.

The first option completely creeped her out. She didn't want to be given away to anyone. And making babies? She couldn't think about that without her skin getting all crawly. And where it would stop? There was no guarantee she'd end up with anyone she even liked. Men made the decisions in Rule. Jess was a strong woman; for all Alex knew, these were some of the things Jess wanted Chris to change. Yet, despite all her bluster, Jess bowed to the will of the men.

Either way, option one was a complete nonstarter.

The second option was a possibility.

If she got herself assigned to a patrol, she could figure the best way to get the hell out of here. They couldn't keep her glued to one of them forever. Eventually, they would have to trust her. She could picture it: out on horseback, and one of them—Chris—would say,
You check over there; I'll check here
. By the time he thought to look for her, she would be gone.

So how to get on patrol? She had to talk to someone. Peter? Yeah, Peter would like that she knew guns. Maybe she could even tell him about her spidey-sense? Yeah, but how would she demonstrate something like that? Kincaid had believed her because he was one of the Awakened, and he knew about Yeager's super-sense. But if no one else knew … Kincaid had said it was subjective: no way to prove that what she said was the truth, unless she fingered someone.

Chris … she didn't know about him. She might be able to work on him, but it wasn't like she was all that experienced. And playing up to Chris made her uneasy, and not just because she didn't want to encourage this whole Tarzan-Jane thing. With Peter, what you saw was what you got; Chris lived too much in the shadows, and she had this sense that he was always watching her—watching
for
her—trying to figure her out.

And what would Chris do if he knew about her? Bad enough that Kincaid had guessed about the monster. Not even Yeager had put that together; the Rev seemed to accept her ability as an Act of God kind of thing.

Wow, wait a minute. If Chris or Peter found out about the monster, she bet either—both—would figure they could trade her for someone who might, you know,
live
. They'd drop-kick her out of town if they knew about the monster…. And wasn't that what she wanted?

Well, yeah, but not like that. When she left, she wanted it to be on her terms, when she was ready. For that, she would need supplies—enough for a month, she figured, and that meant MREs mostly. Three days' worth of trail mix and an egg-salad sandwich just wouldn't cut it. She'd need bleach to purify water, or tablets. A sleeping bag, a tarp, water bottles. Her busy mind ticked over the items: flint, waterproof matches, snare wire, lint for tinder…. She would have to make a list.

She still had the boot knife Tom had given her. In all the fuss, they'd overlooked that. She'd squirreled the knife beneath her mattress first, then thought that was too obvious. So she hid the knife where she thought no one would think to look: in Ghost's bag of dog food, all the way at the bottom. Just so long as she kept an eye on his kibbles, she was golden. But she would need a gun. Her Glock, if she could find it again, and a rifle would be good. Ammunition, several bricks, if she could find out where they kept all that. Maybe a bow? No, too big. Same thing with a rifle, but a gun for sure. Without question. And a place to hide everything until she got herself on a patrol …

But which way to run?

Lena.

Lena had tried. Lena would know. Would have a rough idea anyway. Yeah, but Lena wasn't stupid. If Alex started nosing around, asking questions, Lena would put it together. Lena would want in, and that was a recipe for disaster.

Once she ran, how long would they try to find her? Maybe only as long as they figured she was worth keeping … which brought her around to full disclosure about the monster, and that was no good.

Bringing her around to Door Number Three.

Just cut and run.
Soon.

If she could lie low for a couple weeks, play along while she got stuff together, she might pull it off. No need to get herself put on patrol. In fact, it might be better if she hung around town, figured out its rhythms and who went where. Get people to trust her and see her as a familiar figure. The familiar was usually invisible; how many people really noticed everything they saw?

Plus, Rule needed supplies. For that, they would need Chris and Peter and a bunch of guys. A bunch of horses, a bunch of wagons, and men to ride as escort, like the old wagon trains. That might be the time to boogie: when a lot of the guys were out of town and everyone else was covering their butts.

Carefully, she eased out of bed, wincing at every squeak of the bedsprings, but Sarah was deep asleep and didn't stir. Crossing to the window, she slid a finger between the curtains and peered out. She heard the soft patter of snow against glass but saw nothing. The night was deep and dark and vast. With no streetlights or bob of a flashlight or even a helpful cigarette, she could only guess where the guard kept himself, and he probably moved around, if only to stay warm. It occurred to her that she didn't know if they had a kind of shelter or guard-box, which would make the most sense. Hanging out in a snowstorm couldn't be good for any person, even a younger guy her age, and she couldn't imagine some poor schnook hunkering down all night on the porch with a rifle in his lap. It was more likely that there were mounted patrols, like cops in New York City. She would have to find out.

And what about the dogs?

Crap.

If she happened to pass by—and she
would
, there was no help for that—they would give her away. She was every dog's best friend. Taking Ghost with her was one thing, but having an entire pack … Yeah, but could she use that somehow? She flashed to an image of assembling an army of dogs:
Go, fetch, play dead!
Not bloody likely, as Aunt Hannah would say.

The cold seeped through the glass and broke over her face. She thought of herself out there, alone, struggling through drifts. Even with snowshoes and skis, it would be hard going. Her window of opportunity was closing, and fast. Winter would only get worse.

So, how to avoid getting caught—or, worse, being mistaken for a raider and shot? Maybe duck out the southwest corner, hightail it for the old mine, then loop back north and head … where?

Minnesota. The border. Canada. If Tom was still alive, that's where he'd go. A lot of ground to cover and a big country besides, but if Tom was alive …

If Tom was alive …

“Tom.” She exhaled his name in a soft whisper, watching as her breath fogged the window and then slowly cleared, leaving only a memory that there'd been anything there at all.

Saying his name brought on that hollow ache again. If Tom wasn't dead, where was he? What had happened to him? Was he looking for her? No, he'd have gotten here by now; he knew she was going to Rule. But if he was alive and he was thinking about her at the same moment she was thinking about him, maybe …

She closed her eyes. She forced herself to be very still, wrestled her thoughts to gray, and yet opened her memory to his smell, that strange and spicy scent that was Tom.

She saw and felt him in flashes: Tom in the light of the fire, Tom as he held her the night they found the radio, Tom as a silhouette keeping watch over her. Tom's lips. Tom's hand in her hair. His taste …

She didn't know if the tightness in her throat or the fullness in her heart meant that he was there; that they were connected somehow. Maybe all that she saw and felt was the sensual fullness of memory: that which abided and was nothing but the ghost of a touch, the whisper of a word, the lingering of a scent.

But she felt him just the same, and thought that, maybe, this was why some people didn't mind being haunted.