Eden (24 page)

Not that there was much to
tend anymore.  The heat wave wasn’t letting up and everything
was withering away.  Soon there would be nothing
left.

West and I set out to the
north again, eyes constantly scanning the trees.

“
What do you think is
going to happen to us now?” West said quietly as we
walked.

I didn’t answer for a
moment, trying to collect my thoughts.  “Eventually we’re
going to have to move.  Sooner than later.”

“
Why do you say
that?”

“
It’s obvious.  We
have supplies for a while but winter is coming.  We don’t have
enough to last that long.  We’re going to have to move where
it’s warmer or we’re going to starve to death.  We have
natural resources here, animals to hunt, but it’s not going to be
enough to sustain everyone through the winter.”

West was quiet for a
while.  “Have you talked to Gabriel about this?  You’re
right.  But he’s going to have to be the one to initiate
it.”

“
I will,” I said as I
readjusted my grip on the shotgun in my hands.  “The problem
is, how do we move that many people without being spotted by
Fallen?  How do we move that many supplies at
once?”

“
It might be safer to move
in small groups,” he said quietly as his eyes jerked to the
right.  A squirrel scampered down a tree.

“
Then again, it might not
be.  I don’t know,” I said as I briefly considered shooting
the animal.  I decided against it.  With as little meat
it would provide it wouldn’t be worth the ammunition.  As if
on cue, West’s stomach let out a rumbling growl.  I
chuckled.

“
Okay, we’ve seriously got
to bring back some food.  I can’t take the starvation
rations,” West said in exasperation. 

“
When we’re ready to head
back we’ll look,” I said as I started the climb up the low hills
that looked over Eden.

I was grateful we didn’t
see anything the entire day.  While it was boring to be
walking endlessly through the woods, it was better than running
into something we didn’t want to.  As we started back in the
direction of Eden, we kept our eyes peeled for anything to
eat.  I sensed there was something West wanted to talk to me
about, but had been putting it off the entire day.  Now he had
to be quiet if he wanted to eat.

The woods were silent as
we moved, as if sensing we were on the lookout to take something
home with us.  Something to the left caught West’s eye and he
drew his bow and an arrow before I even caught sight of what he had
seen.  The arrow sliced through the air and the next second we
heard a scream.

A human one.

We were both bolting
through the trees without a second’s hesitation, my mind running
through the possibilities of what we might find.  Surely not
Fallen, they didn’t feel pain and therefore would never
scream.  Could it be Bill?  Graye?  Everyone else
knew better than to wander this far from Eden on their
own.

He was slumped against a
tree, clutching at his left shoulder.  He had already broken
off the shaft of the arrow.  His eyes were squeezed shut in
agony.  He bit his lower lip to hold back the
scream.

“
Holy…” West breathed as
the man came into view.  I didn’t recognize him and I doubted
West did either.  “I thought it was a deer or something. 
What is he doing out here?”

We both dropped to the
man’s side, his eyes flying open in delirious confusion.

“
You’ve been shot with an
arrow,” I said, my voice calm and even.  “We have a doctor at
our camp.  I am going to have to pull the arrow out though or
it will cause more damage as I move you.”

The man’s green eyes
opened wide, searching the sky for things only he could see
now.

“
West, help me,” I said as
I placed my hands on the base of the arrow that was still embedded
into his chest.  “This is going to hurt him.”

West shifted forward,
placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, being careful to stay
clear of the wound.  In one swift movement, I yanked the rest
of the arrow out.  The man screamed so piercingly it made my
brain rattle.

“
We need something to stop
the bleeding,” I said as I tried to recall what Avian would do in a
situation like this.  West slid off his pack and pulled his
shirt off.  It was damp with sweat but it would work.  I
pressed it into the wound and together we secured it with a length
of rope from my pack.  Another scream leapt from his throat as
I picked him up, gathering him securely in my arms.

“
What was he doing out
here?” West asked as we jogged through the trees.  We were
still far from Eden.  So much for getting food for
tonight.

“
On the run maybe?” I said
as I glanced down at him.  He’d had only the clothing on his
back.  I didn’t see any traces of provisions with him, no
tent, no food.

It took us nearly an hour
to get back to Eden.  Even my arms weren’t strong enough to
carry him by myself the entire trip and West had taken half the
load.  The man had turned a pasty white and he shivered
violently, despite the blazing sun above us.  He had also bled
through West’s shirt.  My left arm was covered in his
blood.

Avian was in the medical
tent when we sprinted into it.  He set the notebook down and
jumped to his feet.  There was no hesitation in his
actions.  He knew how to handle a situation like
this.

“
Who is he?” Avian asked
as he pulled on a pair of gloves and removed West’s bloodied shirt
we had used as a bandage.  He started cutting away the man’s
own shirt.  The man barely even whimpered as his wound was
jostled.  Until Avian began cleaning it.

“
He was just in the
woods.  We didn’t realize it was a person,” I said as I moved
out of Avian’s way.

“
I thought he was a deer,”
West said, his eyes looking tortured.  “I couldn’t really see
anything.  Just saw something move.”

“
Where’d he come from?”
Avian asked.  He threaded a needle.  I watched with wide
eyes as he started sewing the man back up.

“
We don’t know,” West said
quietly.  “Is he going to be okay?”

“
The wound is dangerously
close to his heart.  There are a lot of major blood vessels in
that area.  I can’t repair the internal damage so there’s a
risk that even if the bleeding stops on the outside, it may not
stop on the inside.”

West’s face blanched
white.

The man opened his eyes,
rolling around in his head.  “My wife,” he said.  His
voice was rough sounding and then I noticed the tears rolling back
toward his ears.  “My son.  They found us.  I… was
out.  They got them.  …had to run.”

We all looked up at each
other.  Avian dropped what he was doing and opened the box
that contained the CDU.  Less than thirty seconds later he had
it charged up and calibrated.  The man jerked away as it was
pressed to his bare arm.  His eyes continued to roll around in
his head.

Organic but dying
quickly.

“
Where did you come from?”
I asked, leaning over him so he could look me in the eye.  His
own eyes remained unfocused.

“
He may not be able to
speak right now,” Avian said as he cut the threads of the
stitches.  “His body is going into shock.”

“
Where did you come from?”
I asked again.

“
E… east,” he barely
managed to whisper.  “Been running since… day before
yesterday.”  He then started coughing violently.  Red
splatters coated his lips.

“
His lung has been
punctured,” Avian said in despair as he sat back and rubbed his
hand over his stubbled hair.

“
He’s not going to make
it,” I said quietly, looking back down at the man.  Avian
shook his head.

“
I killed him,” West
whispered, backing up to sit on a stump.

“
You didn’t know,” I said,
glancing at him.  “You were trying to feed us, keep us
alive.”

“
He’s obviously not food,”
his voice was hoarse. 

Two hours later, the man
whose name we didn’t even know, took his last shallow breath. 
Avian checked his pulse and pronounced him dead, his voice shaky
and hollow.  Gabriel instructed Bill and Graye to bury him on
the outskirts of camp.  After it was done, Gabriel, Avian,
West and I gathered back in the medical tent.

“
They’re getting close
again,” I said as I paced the length of the tent.  “Attacks
don’t usually come from the east.  It’s just mountains for
miles and miles.”

“
Graye was right,” Avian
spoke.  “They’re getting more and more aggressive.  This
man probably lived in a cabin somewhere with his family.  They
tracked him down.  We all know what they did to the gardens a
few weeks ago.”

Gabriel rubbed at his
beard, deep in thought.  I wanted him to say something, to
tell us what to do.  But I didn’t think he knew what to do
though.

“
We’re going to have to
leave,” I spoke when he didn’t.  “We have a few months of food
left but it won’t be enough to last us through the
winter.”

“
Where would we go?”
Gabriel asked.  I saw something frightening in his eyes that I
had never seen there before.  A loss of hope.

“
It would have to be
south,” Avian spoke up, his eyes coming to my
face. 

“
Exactly,” I said. 
“If we can get somewhere warm enough we should be able to scavenge
for food until we can figure something else out.  I think it
would also be wise to go southwest.  Heading east first will
take too much time.  The trucks we have might not make it very
far and it could take months just to hike over the mountains, if or
when they break down.  By then winter will claim the rest of
us.”

Gabriel nodded his head,
his brain seeming to start to work again.  “I agree but going
west won’t be easy either.  We leave now and we’ll be crossing
nothing but desert in the heat of summer.”

“
Do we wait?” West asked,
the first he had spoken since the meeting began.

“
We risk the Fallen
pressing further in on us if we wait,” I pointed out.

“
We risk the desert heat
claiming us if we go now,” Avian said, sitting forward, resting his
elbows on his knees.  “Temperatures can get close to 120
degrees out that direction.  Without massive amounts of water,
no one would last long.” 

We seemed to be at a
standstill.  What was the right thing to do?  The safest
thing?

“
I say we take it to
everyone,” West said.  “We have to let everyone in Eden know
what is happening.  They have to be figuring it out for
themselves anyway.  Let’s let everyone decide what to
do.”

“
I agree,” Avian said as
he sat back again.

Gabriel nodded, his eyes
thoughtful.  “Fine.  We’ll call a meeting tonight after
dinner.”

West and Gabriel exited
the tent to spread the word.  I stood rooted and closed my
eyes.  I counted backward from ten to help push out the
feelings of loss and despair I didn’t know how to deal with. 
A warm hand slipped into mine, immediately enhancing the calm I was
looking for.  Without opening my eyes, I raised our hands up
to my face and rubbed the back of Avian’s hand against my
cheek.  I could feel Avian’s eyes on my face and I realized
what the emotion that was rolling off of him was. 
Worry.

I wanted to reassure him
that everything was going to be okay.  I wanted to tell him
that we were all going to make it out of this.  I wanted to
tell him that I knew exactly what to do.

But I couldn’t do any of
those things.  I didn’t have any answers.

I finally opened my eyes
and looked into Avian’s.  Raising my other hand, I placed it
on his cheek, feeling the stubble that was growing there.  His
eyes burned as he looked down at me and I felt a strange feeling in
my chest.  Almost as if it were splitting in two.  I
wanted to press my lips to his in that moment, to bury my face in
his chest and to have him wrap his arms around me
again. 

But I also remembered what
I had done with West, remembered Avian’s own words.

I let go of Avian’s hand
and stepped outside into the dying light.

You can’t have
both.

Avian was right. 
Even though I didn’t know how to handle feelings like this, I knew
what I had been doing was wrong.  I couldn’t have both. 
It was unfair to both of them.  And it was tearing me into two
people.

But how was I supposed to
choose?  I felt a tie to both of them, a tie so solid I wasn’t
sure that even
I
was strong enough to sever it.  On the one hand, Avian
was home and made me feel secure and right.  Everything felt
okay when I was with Avian.  But at the same time, he was
still so much older than I was.  And he would be tied to Eden
in such a permanent way.  He would never be able to go on
raids with me, never be able to go hunting or on scouting
duties.  We would always be separated at times and there was
always the risk that we might be permanently that way.

On the other hand, West
had woken up something inside of me.  I never felt more alive
than I did when I was with West.  West pushed me to be
more.  More human and yet more cybernetic at the same
time.  West could go anywhere with me.  He could nearly
match me step for step on scouting duties, could hunt with
me.