Authors: Algor X. Dennison
The path had entered a wide valley that was the junction for a few different hiking trails. A small creek ran down the middle, with trees growing along its banks. Putting down her stick and leaning over a half-submerged boulder, Carrie filled her cupped hands and poured the cool water over her head.
With her eyes still closed to let the refreshing stream run down her face, she heard a sound behind her like the movement of a large animal rolling over or shifting in the grass. It wasn’t danger-close, but it was something big. She crouched low and reached for her gun with one hand while frantically clearing the water from her eyes with the other.
The noise of movement stopped and she heard a long, low sigh that ended in a small moan. It sounded human, and it had come from the brush at the base of a clump of aspens on the stream’s bank about thirty feet away. Bringing the pistol up and taking off the safety, she scanned the trees in the direction the sound had come from. She couldn’t see anyone or anything in the gloom.
The hair on the back of Carrie’s neck tingled, and she glanced around, wondering if she’d stumbled into someone’s camp or even an ambush. If someone was watching her they might already have her in their sights. But she could see nothing around her that indicated danger, and the sound had stopped. She waited breathlessly for a full minute.
She decided she couldn’t run for it. She had to know if there was someone nearby; she couldn’t abide the thought of trying to finish her journey in the dark with an unknown entity somewhere behind her. Cautiously stepping away from the stream, she moved as silently as she could between the aspen trunks, staying low.
As the seconds ticked by, she became less sure of what she’d heard. Was her imagination playing tricks? Could it have been an animal after all, that just sounded bizarrely human? She wasn’t sure if she’d rather face a bear or a man at the moment.
It proved to be the latter, and she almost stepped on him. The man was lying face down with his legs splayed out toward her, head inches from the trickling water. He wasn’t moving and didn’t seem to have noticed her.
He wore an expensive name-brand coat that was fraying, with mud-stained pants and badly worn shoes. He carried no weapon Carrie could see, but a large walking stick lay on the ground next to him. She could see that he had a beard, though most of it was hidden beneath him.
She was taking all this in from a few feet away with her finger on the trigger when the man suddenly sensed her presence and twisted to sit up. Alarm flooded his blunt features when he saw the gun she was clutching in both hands and he froze. Then he slowly slumped back down, resting his head on an elbow.
“
Are you going to kill me?” he asked in a tired, disinterested tone. He stared up at the woman who had gotten the drop on him, water still dripping from her hair and chin. His voice was gravelly but steady.
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Not unless you cause trouble for me,” Carrie replied, but kept her pistol pointed at his chest. “What are you doing here?”
The man sighed and sat up. Carrie backed away a step. The man hunched over as he spoke, and a grimace crossed his weathered features. Carrie noticed how thin he was. “I guess I passed out. Got a drink of water, and then fell asleep or something. I… haven’t eaten much, and I’m hurt.”
Carrie wasn’t about to be manipulated by the man’s sob story. “Why are you out here alone? How did you get here?”
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Just followed the trail from the highway. Ran into some bad luck down there, lost my pack to a couple of ruffians.” He eyed the muzzle of Carrie’s Beretta. “Seems like everybody wants to point a gun at me these days.”
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Get used to it. From now on I don’t think you’ll see many people without one. Are you a criminal on the run?” Carrie asked.
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No,” the man said. “Just an outsider that can’t get a break from anybody. Seems like a lot of these small-town people don’t like outsiders these days.”
Carrie lowered her gun. “The ones I’ve met never did like outsiders. Where did you come from?”
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Albuquerque,” the man replied.
Carrie raised her eyebrows. “You walked from Albuquerque?”
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Most of the way. I’ve been on the road for a few weeks. How about you?”
Carrie considered for a moment, then shook her head and steadied her grip on the gun. “I’ll ask the questions. How did you get through? Aren’t there roadblocks and thugs shaking people down on the highways to the south?”
The man nodded. “Once in a while, around the cities and towns. Nobody bothers you on the open road, though. Even the dregs of humanity have to stay near the populations where they can find something to eat. So you just go around them. I outran a guy with a machete two weeks ago, no joke.”
Carrie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not just meandering along, then. Sounds like you have some place to go.”
The man studied her. “Look, lady, I’m happy to talk if you’ll put the gun away.”
Carrie shook her head. “Can’t do that. But I’ll tell you what. If you tell me everything you know, answer all my questions, I’ve got a little bit of dried fruit in my pack you can have.”
The man shrugged. “Sure. I’ll take anything.”
Carrie stepped back a few paces, then slipped off her pack. “Just stay sitting there. Don’t move.”
The man chuckled dryly. “You got it. Just be careful with that trigger finger, honey. I’m in no hurry to die. My name’s Rory, by the way.”
Carrie ignored his attempt to get personal, and pulled out the bag that contained the last remnants of some dried apples and blueberries. She tossed it to the man and then put her pack back. Keeping the pistol in her hand but no longer pointed at the man, she spoke. “Now for my questions. I’ve got a lot of them. You can talk while you eat, it won’t bother me. First off: what’s Albuquerque like? Do they have power, or government authority?”
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There’s no power anywhere,” Rory said, tearing into an apple slice. “The entire western grid is down, didn’t you know that? And the eastern too, last I heard. But the police are still functioning in Albuquerque.”
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What about Santa Fe?” Carrie asked.
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Yeah, they’re doing better than Albuquerque. Their mayor jumped on it after the meltdown and assigned neighborhood leaders for every area of the city. They didn’t have nearly the level of violence and mayhem there as… some other places.”
Carrie sensed he was hiding something. “What other places? There’s nothing else between here and Albuquerque.”
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Sure there is,” Rory quickly countered. “Alamosa, Salida. Neither of those towns had any shooting or looting that I could see. Just people running out of water and medicine.”
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Okay. Well, what about a national response? Is there any plan, any action by the government or the military to get things back under control?”
Rory shook his head. “You don’t get it, ma’am. The grid is down. There is no communication. No phones, no email, no satellites, no cars. The fastest way to send a message now is to get on a horse and carry it. How is anybody going to coordinate a response to the most overwhelming disaster our country’s ever faced under these conditions?”
He chewed on some more apple and then continued. “And anyway, nobody out here knows exactly what happened to the federal government. But it’s no longer functioning. Some people think Washington D.C. was nuked or something, because not a single message has made it out here from back east. Hopefully someone travels west in the next couple months to let us in on the big secret. It’s too soon for that to have happened yet, though. And there sure hasn’t been any sign of aid coming from overseas, so most people assume the same thing has happened in other countries. That, or they just don’t want anything to do with us at the moment.”
Carrie mulled over the details. If what Rory said was true, it really was a worst-case scenario, and Denver was far from the only city that had been torn apart. But her mind groped for some ray of light. “You sound pretty confident for a guy who’s only been from Albuquerque to Salida. Maybe there’s news out there that you just haven’t heard yet.”
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Maybe,” Rory said, finishing the last dried blueberry. “You can hold on to that hope if you like. Me, I’m hoping to find somebody in Denver with a working radio. And maybe a good cup of coffee, too.”
Carrie shook her head. “Not gonna happen, I’m afraid. You don’t want to go into Denver just now.”
Alarm came back to Rory’s eyes. “Why? Have you been up there already?”
Carrie couldn’t think of any reason not to tell Rory. “I was living there when everything went to hell. You say Albuquerque is making it okay; well, Denver’s not. When we left, it was burning and there was shooting in the streets. If there were any coffee shops still open after the first few days, they’re sure to be empty now. The National Guard can’t even get in, and they’re not letting anybody out either.”
Rory’s face fell and he grimaced again, grabbing at his side as if in pain.
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You were hoping for more than just coffee, weren’t you?” Carrie asked.
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Yeah. My ex is there. She’s all I’ve got. ”
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I’m sorry. Things got ugly on day one, and from what I’ve heard they haven’t improved. But she may be all right. Now suppose you tell me what else you know. Where else have you been?”
Rory hung his head and closed his eyes. “I was living in L.A. Most people don’t react well when I mention that. Like I’m going to infect them or something.”
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What do you mean? Is there a lot of disease there?” Carrie asked.
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Disease. Bloodshed. Riots. Gang wars, rapes, fires, mass killing. The place just came apart; it’s a warzone, it’s a nightmare, it’s hell. By the time I got out I thought I’d seen it all, but Las Vegas was even worse.” He sighed. “I’ve been on the road for a very long time now. I came away with almost nothing, but at least I had somewhere to get to. Now you’re telling me I came all this way for nothing.”
Carrie winced. “That’s not necessarily true. The city’s a mess, but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. Come with me. I’ll take you to a safe place for the night, and in the morning we can put you on your way with a full belly, at least .”
Rory looked up again. “You’d do that? A minute ago you were going to shoot me.”
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No, I wasn’t. Not unless you attacked me, and that offer still stands if you try anything. But I’ll take you back to my place if you’re willing to tell your full story to my friends. We’re trying to find out what happened and how to start patching things up around here.”
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I’ll take you up on that, thank you. How far is it?”
Carrie pulled a bandana out of her backpack. “That’s for me to know and you to wonder. I’m going to have to blindfold you. My friends take security very seriously.”
Rory started to laugh but saw she was serious. “I can’t hike with a blindfold on! I’ll stumble and fall.”
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It’s getting dark anyway,” Carrie pointed out. “We’re both going to have go slow and careful. I’ll keep you pointed in the right direction. And you can use your stick to feel your way along.”
Rory slowly got to his feet. Carrie tossed him the bandana, gun still in hand.
Rory shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
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It’s the only way this is going to happen,” Carrie told him. “You want a meal and a bed tonight, or not? Make sure it’s tied tightly.”
With another long sigh, Rory tied the bandana around his eyes. Then he felt around at his feet and picked up his walking stick. “Okay, now I’m blind.”
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Spin around three or four times,” Carrie commanded. Rory obeyed, ending up facing a tree trunk. “Okay, turn a quarter to your right-- there we go. Start walking. Step high to get over this brush you fell asleep in.”
Rory, high-stepping like a goofy Napoleonic-era soldier, marched out of the trees and up the trail, with Carrie calling out commands to keep him away from large rocks and fallen branches. The last glow of sunlight was fading from the western sky and the moon hadn’t come out yet. But Carrie remembered the trail well enough, and after an hour they were in country she recognized from the rambles she and Stephanie had taken together.
She pulled out the radio she’d put in her pack and turned it on. Every quarter mile she tried to raise DJ on it, but got no response. There were several ridges and hills in between, so she wasn’t surprised, but she kept transmitting. Finally, about a mile from the valley, she got a reply. But it wasn’t DJ.
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Carrie, is that you?” McLean’s voice crackled over the handset. “Where are you?”
Carrie told him her proximity to the ranch and that she was okay.
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Thank goodness,” McLean replied. “We left about twenty minutes ago to search for you. We’re probably about to bump into each other. Flash your light at the trail and ridges ahead, and I’ll tell you when we see you.”
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Okay,” Carrie replied. “But keep your safeties on. I have a prisoner with me, and I don’t want him shot.”
Rory tripped on the dirt and nearly fell with an exclamation.
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A prisoner?” McLean said. “What have you…”