Madelyn took one more look at the smoke in the mirrors as she eased the truck back up to speed.
She slammed on the brakes.
Harper was in the road, waving her arms over her head.
Madelyn didn’t allow herself a single instant of hesitation. She jerked the wheel to the side and mashed down the accelerator. The truck’s back tires spun and whipped the old vehicle around. Madelyn bore down on Harper’s position and hoped the young woman had the sense to get out of the way.
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Harper ran towards the truck. Madelyn was going too fast to make a tight turn, but that’s exactly what she had to do. She needed the old truck to pull off a miracle on its bald tires. She needed the springs to keep the thing upright despite the forces that would try to roll it. What she really needed was for Harper to get the hell out of the way so she could keep the bald tires on the pavement.
The young woman was sprinting right up the middle of the road.
Madelyn cranked down her window as she veered onto the grass.
“Keep running,” she yelled as she passed Harper. She had no hope that Harper had heard the message. Madelyn used the slick grass to start her skid. The back end of the truck hit the pavement at precisely the wrong angle. Madelyn turned into the slid, but the whole truck began to tip. Her left-hand wheels began to come off the road. She was going over.
The back right wheel skipped across the road surface, chirping her position to the world. The truck slammed back down. Madelyn goosed the accelerator to help the truck collect itself.
The clicking sound of the Roamers flooded in through the window like a tsunami of sound. They were close. Madelyn could feel their evil intent. She banged on the wheel and then gripped it tight, pulling it towards herself. The sound of the Roamers filled her head with their bugling roar. In the simulation Madelyn had witnessed, this was the sound a victim heard as their cells were being dissected and analyzed by the Roamers. After a second of identification, the machines would begin to tear her apart.
It would feel like a burning at first. That’s what Madelyn had read. As the first of her skin cells were taken apart, the nerves would tell her brain that she was on fire. The natural reaction was to flinch. Those muscle contractions would draw the machines in even faster.
Madelyn held still and focused on the speedometer. As the tires picked up friction, atom by atom, her speed increased to five and then ten.
She felt tiny knives slicing into the flesh of her back, and up the back of her head. She felt pins pierce her arms. Instinct told her to run from the pain. She wanted to sprint away and dive headfirst into water, as if wasps were stinging her. Water wouldn’t drive away this pain. Once the Roamers had a grip, they wouldn’t let go.
Her speed crept up through the twenties. The truck was going to burst right by Harper.
Madelyn disobeyed her instincts again and let her foot ease off the gas as she drew even with the young woman. The girl had equal parts sense and dexterity. Instead of trying to fumble with the door, Harper grabbed the side of the truck and vaulted into the truck bed.
As soon as she heard Harper land, Madelyn stomped on the accelerator again and the truck jumped into action.
She knew she wasn’t going to make it, and now she had drawn the Roamers right to Harper. Madelyn realized her mistake. She should have steered the truck to the side and led the Roamers away from Harper. At least one of them could have survived. It didn’t matter now.
The damage was done.
The truck climbed through the forties as the fiery blades worked their way up over her scalp and began to take her eye. Even when her vision swam and clouded, she kept her face still. Movement would only accelerate the excruciating process.
As the truck reached fifty and then sixty kilometers per hour, the wind coming through her window washed away a little of the burning pain. Madelyn moaned as she took in another breath. She felt tears streaming back from her cloudy eye. Her hand moved automatically. She brushed away the liquid and saw blood on her hand.
Madelyn looked in the mirror. The blood was running from the corner of her eye.
When the face appeared in her window, Madelyn nearly screamed.
“Roll down the passenger’s window, would you?” Harper yelled through the wind.
Madelyn blinked. She realized that she was going to live.
The truck reached the magic speed of seventy kilometers per hour. She put the passenger’s window down and held the truck still as Harper climbed from the back of the truck through the window. The young woman flopped down in her seat.
“What happened to your eye?” Harper asked.
Madelyn opened her mouth to answer. The first thing that tumbled from between her lips was one of her teeth.
S
HE
KEPT
THE
SPEED
of the truck for as long as she could. They bounced over the potholes and skidded around corners that demanded much more care than Madelyn had time for. Harper gripped her armrest and braced herself against the dashboard, but kept her opinions unvoiced. Night fell as they drove. They had no guarantee that they wouldn’t be swarmed as soon as the truck stopped, but neither woman had any better ideas. They would take the truck as close as they could and then continue on foot to the cabin.
Madelyn locked up the tires and the truck ground to a halt in the middle of Circle Poke.
“Let’s go,” Madelyn said.
She wiped her eye again. Most of the vision had come back, but it was still leaking blood everywhere. She spilled from the vehicle, half expecting her body to fall into pieces. The pain still pumped through her, like her blood had been replaced with ground glass and smoldering embers.
“This is where you live?” Harper asked. She looked around at the ramshackle buildings that surrounded them.
“No,” Madelyn said. “This was a mining camp. Grab that rifle.”
Madelyn’s left leg wouldn’t hold her weight. It was the place where she had stomped the door into her own shin in order to break the man’s grip. That escape from the shopping center felt like it had happened a lifetime ago, but the injury was just now catching up with her. She knew why—it was the Roamers. They had attacked that damaged part of her shin and made the injury worse.
Harper came around the truck and grabbed her shoulder.
“I can manage,” Madelyn said.
“No, you can’t,” Harper said.
Madelyn looked at the young woman as they walked together. It was amazing to her how their relationship had changed over the course of the day. In the truck, speeding away from the unsafe “safe house,” Harper had adjusted quickly to the new reality. They were a team until they got to safety.
Madelyn was lucky. Her shin warmed to the task quickly and she was able to hike without assistance before long. Harper followed her patiently as Madelyn hiked the trail back to her grandmother’s cabin. She kept her eyes towards the ground to pick out the trail.
“You said your nephew is at the cabin?” Harper whispered.
“Maybe. What of it?”
“How do we signal him that we’re approaching? Do we have to announce ourselves so he doesn’t kill us?”
Madelyn barked out a laugh. “He’s not going to shoot at every sound in the dark.”
Harper was silent.
“We’re not like that,” Madelyn said. “We don’t just shoot at everyone we see.”
“And the old liar?”
“He might be there too. I don’t know. There’s sign on this trail, but it could be from the last time he came to the cabin. I’ll admit it—I was ready to shoot him that time. You’ll note that I didn’t shoot him.”
“Were those his clothes in the back of the truck?” Harper asked.
“Yes. Taking his clothes isn’t the same as shooting.”
“Okay,” Harper said.
As they got to the edge of the clearing, Madelyn stopped and peered into the darkness. Harper had gotten inside of her head—the place looked dangerous to her. She had only been away for a brief time, but her grandmother’s cabin looked foreign in the moonlight.
“Is that it?” Harper asked.
“It’s bigger than it looks.”
They crossed the clearing. Madelyn kept her eyes away from the patch of turned soil that marked her incinerator. She didn’t want Harper to catch sight of it and jump to another quick judgement.
Madelyn stopped when she heard the catch on the door. That was
her
lock. She wasn’t accustomed to hearing someone else move the mechanism.
They waited.
No light came through the doorway as the door creaked inward. They heard a shuffling step. The man moved out into the moonlight of the porch. It was the old liar, Gabriel. He was dressed in David’s clothes.
Harper ran around Madelyn and closed the distance fast.
She took the old man into a hug.
“Grandpa!” Harper said. She buried her face in the shirt that had belonged to David.
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Madelyn joined the two hugging relatives on her own porch.
“I’ve been thinking,” Madelyn said. “Maybe we’re all even.”
Harper and Gabriel turned to her.
“You saved my life and I saved yours. You lied to me and I stole your truck. Come morning, I suppose maybe you two should just be on your way.”
“Suits me,” Gabriel said.
“No, Grandpa, we have to wait for the reset. You don’t know what’s been happening.”
“I picked up some videos at random,” he said.
Madelyn slid by Gabriel and went inside. “Don’t tell me you’ve been…” She moved to the stairway and saw that the hatch to the to lift was still open down there. “You mind not messing with my control panel when I let you stay in my cabin?”
Gabriel appeared behind her. Harper came through last and closed the door. The young woman folded her arms as she looked at the wall of skulls.
“You left me alone here,” he said. “Is it unreasonable for me to poke around and figure out how this place operates? I didn’t have any idea how long I would be here.”
Madelyn crossed to the little kitchen and saw the dishes in the sink. She lifted a bowl from the counter. “Ice cream? You’ve been wasting my power fabricating ice cream?” She tossed the bowl towards the sink where it clattered into the other things there.
“What did you do with my nephew?” Madelyn asked.
Gabriel shot Harper a look. He returned his eyes to Madelyn and thought for a second before he responded.
“Who?”
“Nothing,” Madelyn said. “It was a joke.”
“If there’s someone else here,” Harper said, “you should alert him to our presence. We don’t want any misunderstandings.”
Madelyn reached up and pressed a finger cautiously at the corner of her eye. When she blinked, the bad eye showed her starry halos around everything for a second.
“I need to lie down,” Madelyn said. “You can take that bedroom and the couch. I sleep above. I just need the bathroom first.”
When she finished getting cleaned up, Madelyn climbed up to her loft. Harper and Gabriel were talking low on the couch. Madelyn tried to hear what they were saying, but she gave up after a little while. Their murmurs became background noise as Madelyn drifted off to sleep. It was a cozy feeling to be back in her own bed after such a strange adventure. Still, she would feel even better once the interlopers had left her house.
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Madelyn awoke to the aroma of breakfast. For a moment, she wondered what day it was. She smiled to herself as she realized that she didn’t even know the year. One of the people downstairs could probably tell her if she cared to ask.
She climbed down from her loft, and appraised the situation. Gabriel was standing at her grandmother’s stove. Harper worked at the sink. Madelyn lifted a plate of bacon that was sitting on the counter. She let it clank back down.
Harper turned and smiled.
“How are you feeling?”
Madelyn gave the question some thought before she answered.
“Still some pain in my back and my shin. My eye was glued shut with crud but I can see fine.”
“Grandpa said you might hold the record for closest contact with the Hunters.”
Gabriel turned and frowned. “Not exactly what I said.”
“Yes, you did,” Harper said. She gave her grandfather an amused glance.
“I said that Paul Davis was the only person I’d heard of who came that close, but he didn’t live to see the dawn.”
“Same thing,” Harper said.
“Not really,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. He turned back to the stove. “Eggs are ready.” He brought his skillet over to the counter and dished out the eggs as Harper presented him with plates. They pulled toast from the oven and juice from the refrigerator.
“What’s the budget for all this?” Madelyn asked as they sat down at the square kitchen table.
“It’s okay,” Harper said. “I checked your energy balance before we started. You’ve still got a million years of power, even with this breakfast.”
“You can’t take it with you,” Gabriel said. He shook a piece of toast in Madelyn’s direction.
“It would be one thing if people dismissed frugality,” Madelyn said. “I don’t understand why people seem so angry when a person tries to save energy.”
Gabriel spoke through a mouthful of food. “We’re surrounded by a wealth of resources and there are very few of us left. We don’t have to worry about running out of anything for a thousand generations.”
“It’s the concept of endless expansion that led to the collapse of our entire way of life, you old fool. You’ve got a granddaughter. You should be teaching her that the world is a precious, finite resource. We can’t take any more than we need or we’ll have nothing. We’re sitting here eating eggs, bacon, toast, jam, and juice that was manufactured by a Q-bat that pulls energy from where? Do we even know anymore? And we’re adding that energy to the Earth in an equation that doesn’t balance.”