Authors: Christine Dougherty
Why did he dislike them so much?
~ ~ ~
The next few days were spent on little besides travel. They all seemed in the grip of some powerful force pulling relentlessly from the southeast. They traveled 81 South, dropping into Pennsylvania, making it to the 380 junction in good time. From 380, they made it to 80 in a day, and then from there began the trek east toward New Jersey.
In Rayport, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles from the New Jersey state line, there was another outpost. The citizens of Rayport were as enchanted by Ash and Snow as the people of Greenville had been, but Miller again decided against staying the extra day. None of the group wanted to waste any time, especially with Jersey so close.
Crossing into New Jersey the next morning, Promise was amazed to be in a third state within a handful of days. She was surprised that New Jersey looked much like Pennsylvania–wooded, rural, and pretty–when she’d expected smokestacks and city after city crowded into a dirty landscape.
She wondered if their route would put them anywhere near the ocean. Everyone back home had told her it was really not that different from Lake Ontario where they spent many summer weekends, but still…if they’d all been so wrong about Jersey itself, might they also be wrong about the ocean?
From 80, they would be looking for a much smaller road…Route 206. It would take them south all the way to the base. The biggest city they’d pass through would be Princeton, and Promise wanted to see that, too. She’d seen pictures of it, back when she was dreaming about colleges–back when such conventions still existed and everything had still been possible. It had looked old-fashioned but exciting. Urban but tidy, like an expanded–almost more grown-up–version of Wereburg’s own, quaint downtown.
The horses walked easily, and the sun was strong and warm on Promise’s face; it was probably close to fifty degrees. In front of her, the Humvees were pushing past another twist of cars. The horses could get by without difficulty, weaving serenely past the sometimes corpse-filled vehicles, but the tangled ruin was another reminder of why the Guard traveled so slowly. You never knew when you’d come upon a wreck.
Or a survivor.
Just like the little girl Nancy, Promise thought, although being rescued in her case had only prolonged her short life by a day or so.
Promise shivered despite the sun. The still-cold wind caressed tears from her eyes. She dug her scarf from the neckline of her coat and wrapped it halfway up her face, so only her eyes showed. She let her breath warm the knit and adjusted the pink scrunchie holding her hair in a ponytail. The sky was very blue, and only a few thin clouds drifted past high above. There were no airplane trails up there, not anymore. Promise wondered when she’d get used to it: the lack of airplanes floating silently by. Would she ever to get to fly in one?
At mid-morning, the first signs appeared for the Rt. 206 junction, indicating it was nineteen miles away. They would transition to 206 South at a town called Netcong. Most likely they’d camp in Netcong tonight.
The woods had opened up, and they were riding past a development of homes that looked a lot like Promise’s own Willow’s End development back in Wereburg. She assumed that as they went along, they’d come upon a grade school, a high school, a small town…she was instantly homesick. She wondered what Lea and Mark were doing and if Chance was okay. She wondered if he was still locked securely in their old house. She felt again the aching distress of not being able to get in touch. It had been so easy, once, to just pick up a phone and call. Now that seemed like some kind of futuristic, sci-fi dream. They were all so isolated. She shivered again and looked sideways at Peter.
A knit cap was pulled down low over his ears. He swayed to the rhythm of Snow’s quick walk, and his eyes were on the Humvee directly before them. His gloved hand came up, and he swiped at his nose, sniffing. It was such an unselfconscious, child-like gesture that she was reminded again of Chance. She smiled.
“What was your hometown like?” she asked, and some of her sadness dissolved in her curiosity.
He looked at her and smiled, eyebrows raised. “I was just thinking about that. Must be the area, huh?” They were on an overpass, and the road below led to a small cluster of stores with homemade names like Ophelia’s Fine Cuts, Bowl-A-Rama, and Jackson Brothers’ Hardware. A long, low brick structure identified itself as an elementary school, with its large, colorful playground and now-ragged baseball diamond behind it. Further down, just peeking out of the trees, was the beginning of another development.
“Believe it or not, our town was actually a little more rural than this one. More rural than Wereburg, even,” he said and smiled again. “Trisha and I had a little house, but it had a big yard…three acres. Snow had her own barn, and we’d talked about getting another horse. Trish and I talked about it, I mean, not me and Snow.” He patted Snow’s neck. His eyes drifted over the town again, but he wasn’t seeing it; he was seeing the past. “She loved animals. All of them. Snow was her baby, but we also had five cats and a dog, plus she fed
everything
. Birds, squirrels, raccoons, possums, chipmunks, deer…she put out corn and suet, seed, peanuts. I used to tell her that her entire paycheck from Woolworth’s went to animal food. She didn’t care, though. She’d go without to make up for it. She never bought anything for herself. My mom always said that Trisha had the best mothering instincts; that she’d be…” He stopped abruptly and shook his head as if denying a thought. He continued, but the pitch of his voice had changed, become slightly higher. “That she’d be a good mother with her feeding nature and selflessness.”
Promise found herself torn at Peter’s words, feeling sorry for him, but also somehow jealous of his young, dead wife; jealous of how perfect she’d been, at least to Peter. At eighteen and as yet innocent of any serious relationships, she was too young to understand that death had a way of perfecting the one who’d passed on, at least in the eyes of those who grieved. Especially in the case of a young and untested marriage, as Peter’s had been.
He continued on, oblivious to Promise’s emotional turmoil. “We always said we’d have two kids once she was finished school, and I had been at my job long enough to establish myself. My parents kept saying that if we waited for the exact right time then we’d never have them, because there is no exact right time. I was just starting to understand what they meant, because even after she finished school, then she’d want to start working, and then we’d have put it off even longer. So we had decided to–they’re stopping.”
Promise, who’d been raking her fingers through Ash’s mane, untangling the small snarls, turned to Peter in confusion. Then her eyes followed the direction of his gaze: the Humvees had stopped ahead of them. She checked the sun. Almost mid-day. They must be stopping for lunch. Then she checked their surroundings. As she’d listened to Peter and fussed distractedly with Ash’s mane, the town that had made her homesick had slipped away behind them, but a few businesses had popped up, indicating another town was soon to come.
A car lot filled with the past sat sad and forlorn, its formerly snapping pennants long since pulled to tatters and in parts blown away completely. The cars were dusty and worn, some with tires flattened and windshields broken. Next to it was a McDonald’s…one of the ones with a bright, plastic playground extending from the back of the building. Promise felt as though she could almost hear Chance yelling catch me! catch me! as he barreled down a slide. She saw herself sitting across from him at a red picnic table as he crammed a messy handful of fries into his toddler’s mouth, the ketchup leaving an exclamation point smear on his little chin, his eyes avid on the other children. The fast food at McDonald’s was not the draw for him; it was the kids. His only sibling was Promise, and she and Chance were so far apart in years that when he was three and four and she was twelve and thirteen, she’d often been mistaken for his babysitter rather than his sister.
Evans stood at the side of the second Humvee, arms crossed, looking across the car lot. His face was a hard mask. Lu had placed a box of rations on the hood. “Come and get it,” he said and smiled at Promise and Peter as they rode up. Evans did not acknowledge Lu or the riders.
Miller and Billet exited the lead Humvee.
Promise dismounted and hissed as her feet hit the ground. Her legs were still sore. It was more the cold stiffening her muscles than the riding itself. But each day got a little better as she acclimated to the long hours on horseback. She put her hands to her lower back and stretched, groaning involuntarily. Embarrassed, she joked to cover it up.
“Whoo…never thought I’d get tired of horseback riding, but geez…” She let her sentence trail off, smiling in the direction of the Guard soldiers.
Billet smiled back, and Miller looked up distractedly.
Evans snorted. “Poor little Princess! Tired of your pony already, precious?” His words were so filled with acid, Promise could nearly feel them sink into her one by one, burning as they tore through her heart. Her face reddened in embarrassed anger, and she opened her mouth to contradict him, but a sharp thunk distracted her attention.
Peter had jumped from Snow, and now he flew past Promise in a blur. Evens’ eyes widened, and he brought his hands up defensively, but he was too slow–Peter was on him in an eyeblink, in half a breath. He put his hands on Evans’ shoulders, the fabric of his uniform bunched in Peter’s tight fists.
Peter pushed Evans back against the Humvee, pulled him forward, and slammed him back again. The entire vehicle shuddered with the force of the blow. Evans’ breath left him in a wheeze even as anger suffused and tightened his features. His hands came up to Peter’s arms, and he struggled to break Peter’s hold on him. “Get off me, you shit, you–”
“Hey!” Miller yelled and stepped around the Humvee, coming toward the clenched pair. “Break it up!”
Billet stood dumbly, mouth hanging open, and Lu turned in surprise from where he’d been digging through the food.
Peter’s face was inches from Evans’, and Evans stopped struggling as a wave of cold fear chilled his heart. Peter’s eyes blazed hot orange as though fire had filled his skull, and he pulled Evans even closer. Peter’s grip was like a vise, like iron; Evans was powerless to break the hold. He’d never felt so small or so weak in his adult life.
“I’ve had enough of you, Evans,” Peter said, and his voice was calm but rough with heat. The breath that fell on Evans’ face was hot and dry as a desert wind. Evans turned away from it, his eyes squeezed closed.
Miller put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, trying to pull him back, but it was like trying to shove a rock, a boulder. She tried to pry Peter’s hand off Evans shoulder and could not. “Billet! Lu! Help me!” Her voice was twined panic and anger.
Peter put his mouth to Evan’s ear. “If you want a fight,
I’ll
give you a fight,” he said, the words quiet with menace. “But you leave her out of it–” he said, and his grip tightened. Evans’ shirt pulled free of his pants. “Or I’ll kill you.”
He released Evans and stepped back abruptly. Evans slid, stumbled, and fell onto his hands and knees on the road, eyes still closed, panting. Miller knelt beside him and put a concerned hand on his shoulder. He brushed her off and scrambled up.
Peter turned to see Lu standing fifteen feet from him, an arrow notched in the crossbow, aimed at his chest. Peter raised his hands, palms up. “He started it, Lu. You heard him.”
Lu didn’t lower the arrow, but he blinked. His eyes slid to Miller. “Is Evans okay?” he asked her.
Miller was already standing, brushing the knees of her uniform, her face set in careful lines of neutrality. “He’s fine. Not a mark on him,” she said and looked at Peter. “Are
you
okay, Peter?”
They all knew she wasn’t asking him whether he was hurt–they’d all seen what had happened. Evans hadn’t had a chance to fight back. Technically, there hadn’t even
been
a fight–Peter’s hands hadn’t strayed from Evans’ uniform, and yet he’d held him as easily as though Evans were a kitten.
Peter looked at Miller, and his eyes were clear of the hot fire that Evans had seen. He nodded and said he was fine. Miller nodded to Lu, and Lu lowered the crossbow. “What was this all about?” she asked, addressing Peter. Peter glanced across at Evans and then shrugged and turned away, disinterested, looking for Promise.
Evans struggled to tuck his shirt back into his pants with angry thrusts. “He tried to kill me,” Evans said. His voice was tight, and a slight tremor ran through it, but it was hard to tell if the tremor was from fear or rage. He looked at Miller and then Lu. “And neither of you did anything about it.” Then his eyes found Billet. Billet hadn’t moved in the fifteen seconds the entire confrontation had taken. “Not even
you
helped me out, did you,
friend
?” Evans’ voice was laced with sarcasm. He lowered his head, shaking it. “We have a damn half-and-half riding with us, and nobody cares. He tries to
kill
me, and
still
nobody cares. Well, maybe when he kills one of
you
, then we’ll care, right?
Then
we’ll do something about it, right, Miller?”
Miller laughed. “Kill you? Where are you even hurt, Evans? Show me!”
Evans shook his head again and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s not the damn point, Miller, and you know it. We should have dumped these two after Riker was killed. They’re bad luck, and they’re slowing us down!”
“That’s my decision, Evans, not yours,” Miller said, and her tone was hard. Her eyes on him were even harder. “You don’t like it? There’s the door.” She threw her arm back, indicating the road. “Otherwise, keep it to yourself, got it?”
Evens stared at her, tense with fury. She watched as he fought an internal fight, trying to decide whether to accept her terms or not. All at once, he relaxed and looked away, giving in. He nodded.
It wasn’t enough.
“Have…you…got…it?” she asked, and each word was distinct and filled with menace. She had to make him say it, to make sure he knew who was running this outfit.