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HER HEART LEAPT PAINFULLY in her chest. Someone’s vehicle had survived? This changed everything. She stood and turned toward the sound like a lizard turning toward the morning sun. Part of her wanted to go running toward it, whooping with glee.
But the part of her that had learned cruel lessons since The Event kept her still. She turned her head this way and that, trying to figure out from the sound how far it was away and which way it was heading.
The noise grew louder. And it came from the southwest of here, so maybe it was following the train tracks. Or it could be cutting cross country, maybe following a compass heading east.
Her mind spun for a second, then locked onto a thought. I should get ready to haul ass out of here if need be. So first, load the supplies back onto the sled and— No. Damn. Benjamin has the sled.
At least if this were danger headed her way, he was well away from it. As for her? Defense first.
She kicked snow over her fire, killing the small wisp of smoke rising from it. She gathered up the soup cans, barely warm to the touch, and carried them into the snow cave. Coming back out, she looked around, trying to see the camp with new eyes. A well-worn path went from snow cave to latrine. She kicked more snow around that. For several minutes, she pushed snow into the latrine, and then she went back to the fire and did the same, until the dark circle of the cooking pit was light gray again with fluffy, ash-colored snow. In the garage she retrieved her bow and arrows, and she scraped snow around the entrance, trying her best to disguise the line of the entrance tunnel, leaving an opening no wider than her hips.
When she was done, she turned toward the snow cave, stopping at the last second to look back at the garage. It was still a suspicious hump, but it could be something natural. From a distance, someone might think nothing of it.
Had it snowed since the last time they did a food run? She thought it had. She hoped so. Otherwise, a careful tracker could follow their circuitous trail back here from the train tracks.
After the camp was taken care of, she had to decide what to do next. She could run, follow Benjamin’s trail up to the water, and hide out with him. It’s what he might want.
But no. The most useful thing she could do would be to go toward the engine noise, to reconnoiter. It might take her a while. She retrieved and quickly downed the defrosted cans of soup, washing them down with water.
Then she wriggled back into the garage and groped around in the dark until she found her backpack. She wanted camouflage. She had a towel, dingy gray by now, close enough to the color of the snow. Pack, water bottle, bow and arrow. Did she need anything else?
She couldn’t think of a thing. What she’d give for a pair of binoculars.
She retrieved the smallest two bottles of water, put them in her pack next to her body, tossed in a couple frozen cans of soup, just in case, tied the towel around her head like a shawl, tucked the ends into her sweater and jacket, and put the pack on her back.
She was kicking more snow over the tunnel into the snow cave when the sound of the truck engine cut out.
Whirling, she stared to the south. She should have been paying better attention. Where had they stopped? She had to see who it was before they moved—or left entirely. A hopeful thought struck her. Maybe it was a rescue vehicle. Police. Fire. Maybe the Red Cross. Could something like that still exist?
A new sense of urgency pushed her into action. She jogged west, parallel to the train track, but still well out of sight of it. She kept her head low, running stooped through pristine snow. She was leaving a trail any idiot could follow. No help for that.
After what she judged to be a half-mile, she turned left, south toward the tracks. The train itself would be somewhat east of her now, the state road they’d come north on still a good ways to the west.
It must be a cloud-free day above the swath of gray ash that filled the air. Visibility was as good as it ever was. But she still couldn’t see as far as a half-mile in any direction. She climbed a slight rise and stared to the south, trying to see any hint of movement, any dark patch against the light gray snow.
There was nothing. She headed south, but carefully, scanning the horizon all the while.
Should she spend time scrubbing out her tracks?
No. No time to waste. She had a terrible fear whoever it was would disappear. They might be enemies. But they might not be, and letting an opportunity to join forces with someone with a working vehicle? And maybe more resources than that? She’d never forgive herself for missing such a chance.
Still, she felt more frightened of them than not. Hope was fine, but it was no reason to get stupid. The instant she spotted the line of the train tracks, she dropped to hands and knees and began to crawl.
It took forever to reach the rail line.
When she did, she saw not a truck, not people, but the tracks of the vehicle, in the ditch on the north side of the tracks.
They were odd tracks, not at all normal tire marks, thicker. Within each were three lines paralleling the line of travel. Within each of those, there were perpendicular marks, straight, and not like the normal zig-zag of tire treads. And the tracks were deep. It must be a very heavy truck.
But it was only one set of tracks, leading east, toward where the train was. Toward where their food supply was.
Coral stared the way the truck had gone, giving herself one last chance to decide. Go on and risk being caught? Or run back to Benjamin?
There was really no choice. She had to see who was up ahead.
She crossed over the truck tracks, then over the rail line, moving to the south side of it. The tracks were elevated, built up onto a berm, so she could crawl along the south side of it and remain hidden from anyone standing on this side.
On hands and knees, she headed east. Every few minutes, she stopped to listen.
She finally heard the distant sound of a voice. And, a moment later, laughter. Both voices were deeper than hers. Two men. Or more than two?
She stayed where she was and listened harder. From time to time, there was a metallic noise. She thought she was hearing the same two voices, over and over, but she couldn’t be sure.
Get closer, then.
She crawled forward, trying to breathe quietly. The adrenaline was pumping, though, and it was hard not to pant. Her body demanded extra oxygen. She was afraid of being heard, or triggering a coughing fit, which would definitely be heard, so she rolled over on her back and closed her eyes, forcing deep, slow breaths, trying to calm herself. It took longer than she would have liked to get control over her breathing. She moved on.
She reached the beginning of the train, where the car carrier loomed overhead. She could hear the voices better now.
“What the hell,” one said. “It’s all frozen.”
“So we take it back, get it unfrozen.” That voice was pitched significantly lower, and with a trace of a southern accent, like Kentucky, maybe.
“There’s a hell of a lot here.”
“Good.”
“And someone has been into it.”
“I’m climbing up, see what I can see from here,” said Kentucky. “Maybe there’s a farmhouse nearby or something.”
If he climbed up on the top of the car, he could see her. Damn, could he see her tracks? She raised her head and looked behind her.
Maybe not. The trail of her crawling wasn’t nearly as obvious as footprints would have been. It didn’t shout “person was here.” She might get lucky. But she had to get out of sight, and now.
Where?
She heard a loud clanging, then a “shit,” and more clanging. He was climbing the container stack.
Decide.
She scrambled to her feet and was about to dash up the rise to the train, when she realized that would leave an obvious trail. So she dropped down again and tried rolling up. Not fast enough. So she half crawled, half swam up the slope of snow, trying to move quickly but quietly, hoping her frantic movements were obliterating any clear trail.
Winds had pushed the snow right up against the bottom of the train in drifts. There was a lower spot between two cars, a dark hole in the drifts about the size of her head, and she made for it. She ran and dove at the opening, pulling down snow as she went through. If he climbed down on this side and looked, she was afraid he’d see her track, no problem. But maybe from the high angle....
She burrowed under the car, hoping for empty space. But snow had been pushed under the car by the wind, filling the space. She pushed into the snow as far as she could. The snow packed ahead of her and the density of it finally stopped her. With no little difficulty, she twisted around so she was facing out the tunnel. The towel slid off her head and the undercarriage of the train car pressed cold against her head. There was not enough room to draw her bow and shoot, even if she could get to it. She scraped at the snow ahead, filling in the tunnel, trying to hide herself in case he looked in here. Thin light reached into the tunnel but dimmed as she blocked herself in.
The voices came again but too muffled now to make out.
Belatedly, she realized she’d truly backed herself into a corner. If they didn’t notice her tracks, if they stayed here, she couldn’t move until night, and there was no way to warn Benjamin. He’d come back to camp, realize something was off at the campsite, and not know where she was.
He would surely follow her tracks. If he missed seeing the tire tracks, he could walk into trouble.
She might have an hour before that happened.
And damn, but it was cold. If Benjamin didn’t come hunting for her, she might be able to survive until nightfall with no more than frostbite, but no way would she be able to spend a night out here without her sleeping bag. She’d die.
Idiot. You’d deserve it.
Of course, they might be seeing her trail clearly right now, follow her, and yank her out within minutes.
Was that the good news, or the bad news? She didn’t think they’d kill her to eat her for food at this point, not with so much food in the container cars. But there was still murder, and rape, and torture.
She felt like even more of an idiot for how she’d been feeling these past few weeks. Bored with inactivity. Bored with the food. Short-tempered from the boredom, and incapable of imagining a year more of it. That had been an easy life. What was it about human nature—or at least about her nature—that she didn’t appreciate what she had until it was gone?
Benjamin, please don’t come looking for me. She hoped he’d take his time and get back too late in the day to follow her trail into danger.
Over the minutes, she grew so cold, she was worried that if an opportunity to run came, she wouldn’t be able to take it. She had to start moving again, and right now.
Cringing at every creak of the snow, she crawled toward the light. Before thrusting her head out into the space between the train cars, she listened for the voices. They were still there, and still only two. They were talking about how to get the train moving again. At least they were on the north side of the tracks again. Apparently, the guy who climbed up the train hadn’t seen the track of her passage through the snow for what it was. Maybe he’d been looking out further than the base of the car.
So far, so good.
She might be able to retrace her steps, crawl back along the same path, and once she was a half-mile away, she’d be impossible for them to see. She could stand up then, run back to the camp, hope that Benjamin was there.... But that was lousy reconnoitering on her part. “A couple of male voices and a working vehicle and I was too scared to see more.” Not very useful information to bring back.
Be logical. Okay, fine. Her choices were: One, pop out of hiding, smile, wave, and hope they were good guys, as willing to share the cache of food as she was. Two, sneak away and be happy she’d lived through the experience. Three, sneak toward them and somehow steal their vehicle. So much would have to go right for that one to work, she’d use up a lifetime’s supply of dumb luck. That’s the way it’d probably work in a movie, with her kickboxing the crap out of them, too. But real life wasn’t a movie, and her legs would be too numb to do any kickboxing, even if she knew how, which she did not.
So it’d have to be option four, spy on them and not get caught. Get more information to take back to Benjamin, and then discuss with him what to do.
“It’s a lot of weight to move any other way,” Kentucky was saying.
“We’ll get the prisoners to do it,” said the other.
“So we bring out all the Hummers, a guard for every few prisoners? Then we won’t have much space to stack cans. Not going to move it very quickly that way.”
“We can rig up trailers. Hell, with the snow, we don’t need wheels on ‘em. Panels from a Quonset hut might even work. We could just drag ‘em.”
“The cans would roll off.”
“Whatever, man. We’ll jury-rig something.”
“Want to load some up now?”
“When we have someone else to do the heavy lifting instead? You talk like you’re still on the farm.”
Kentucky grunted. “Good thing for the prisoners we found the food. I think the captain was thinking of culling the herd.”
“As long as he leaves Lupe alone.”
“You got her again in the lottery for tonight?”
“And only second. Not bad, huh?”
“You must have some way of fixing the draw, man.”
The other man laughed. “It’s fate.”
“I only had her once, but it was after Evans. She wasn’t hardly any use at all. All bloody and crying and shit.”
“He’s an ass. No finesse with women. Hell, paying for it is probably the only way he ever got it before.”
“We already lost one because of him. I don’t see why the captain doesn’t take him out of the rotation.”
“She killed herself. You can’t blame Evans. The girl had no survival instinct.”
“There’s no reason to use ‘em up. It’s wasteful.”
“There’s more where those came from.”
“I wonder, man. We haven’t seen any survivors for almost a month.”
“They’re out there. Like whoever opened up this train car.”
“We should find them,” said Kentucky.
Coral’s throat closed tight. Don’t start looking now, please.
“When we come back tomorrow.” His voice was fading. “We’ll bring...” and the voices faded as they moved back toward the train engine.
Her throat dry with fear, she crawled back, moving stiffly on cold arms and legs. She remembered thinking, not too long ago, that she might be willing to whore herself for food or warmth—and she knew now that she had been very, very wrong. Every cell in her body told her that she wasn’t willing to do any such thing.
Move, now.
She slithered back out from under the train car, crawled back one more car, then two, then three and again, the drift between the two cars was low enough that she could stuff herself under the third car back. She wanted to actually see the guys, if she could, and understand what sort of enemy she was dealing with.
She crawled into this indentation and began to toss handfuls of snow back out, widening the space. She worked as fast as she could, but her limbs responded sluggishly to her commands. She hoped that her extremities would come back alive—at least enough to get her back to the snow cave and Benjamin.
As she burrowed closer to the north side of the train car, she began to dig more slowly. Punching a fist through while they were looking back this way was the last thing she wanted to do. What she wanted was enough space to peek her head out, or half her head, just one eye’s worth. She stopped and patted snow into five small bricks, ready to pile them up to block the spyhole she planned on making. She pushed more snow away, packing it to the sides and overhead, leaving herself enough room to turn around and scuttle out quickly, if need be.
After building a ledge to pile the bricks on, she carefully carved away more snow right above it, at head height. The daylight was visible through the thin crust of remaining snow now. She held her breath and listened. The voices weren’t audible. Either they were still down at the engine, or they were closer but weren’t talking.
Do it.
She punched her glove through the remaining snow and pushed one side of her head through, blinking away the snow that trickled down.
The first thing she saw was the vehicle—not a truck, she could see now. It was a Hummer, in camouflage, with U.S. ARMY stenciled on it. The men were nowhere near it. She risked pushing her head out a few inches more and looked up the length of the train, then back down it. They were nowhere to be seen. She pulled her head back. Her heart was pounding hard again, her throat dry, her jaw clenched against the fear.
The world had changed. It didn’t matter if they were military, or regular guys who had stolen an Army vehicle. Either way, they were enemies, not potential friends. Simultaneously with her having the thought, a man in a wool coat and fatigue pants backed down from the engine. A massive weapon was slung over his shoulder, the kind of big rifle they’d use in wars.
They had prisoners, including, it seemed women used as whores, and a working vehicle, and big weapons. She knew enough.
She piled her bricks up over the hole she had made, hoping the disturbance to the snow wasn’t glaringly obvious from the outside. Maybe they wouldn’t come back this way at all. If they drove fast past the spot, they’d probably not glance this far down to see the irregularity in the drift.
And in a moment, she was going to be gone anyway. She turned herself around, crawled back out into the diffuse daylight on the opposite side of the train, and crawled as fast as she could along the path she had made earlier. Every couple of train cars she paused, glancing back and listening for sounds of pursuit. There were none.
She passed the car carrier at the end of the train and, now that there wasn’t the bulk of the train to block her from view, made sure to keep her head low. Could she have tucked it in like a turtle’s, she would have. The awkward posture forced her to move more slowly. Twice, she rolled over to ease a cramp and to look past her boots, down the line of the train, hoping that the far end of the train had faded from view in the ash-filled air. The third time she let herself look, it had.
She stood on numb legs and stamped them on the ground, hoping to force some blood back into them. It did nothing to help. She staggered along on the dead things, passing over the rail line, right over her previous tracks. She wanted to run north immediately, but it was worth the delay, to spend five minutes trying to disguise her tracks right here, where they could see them from their vehicle if they drove it back this way.
The thought of the working Humvee engine bugged her. How the hell did they get that thing to run? No other car in Idaho was working, but that was?
On hands and knees again, she swept her arms over her boot prints, backing up, sweeping out more and more, and wishing she had a blanket to speed the process.
She erased her tracks for ten yards, then twenty, swinging her stiff arms like clubs. By the time she figured she had the length of a football field smoothed over, she stood again, checked to the east to make sure she still couldn’t see them. She turned and began to run the best she could on numbed legs. It was more of a stumble than a run.
She had gone no more than another quarter of a mile, and her legs had begun to tingle and prick with new blood flow, when she heard the Humvee’s engine.
It was coming this way.
If only she’d gotten another quarter-mile away, or back to the ridge. She could see it ahead of her, but there was no way she could reach it in time.
Dig in.
She fell to her stomach and burrowed into the snow, arms scrabbling, as fast as she could make the numb things move. She crawled forward a foot and kept digging, making a trench for her body. The engine noise increased, and she lay flat, rolling to her back, pressing herself down, hearing a crack as either her bow or an arrow snapped beneath her. A worry for later. She flung snow over her the dark line of her jeans legs, and then, as the engine noise reached a higher pitch, lay still, hardly daring to breathe.
The engine noise hesitated, and her heart leapt into her throat. She pushed her head down and closed her eyes, like a little kid. If I can’t see them....
The engine noise changed again, moving up in pitch and, as they passed her position and drove on to the west, back down in pitch. The world grew quieter.
She waited until the motor sound faded away entirely, and then she counted “one-one-thousand, two one-thousand” up through two hundred seconds more. Her head came up and she looked back toward the rail line. Nothing. The scene was entirely quiet. There was no sign that anyone had been there.
No sign at all that her life had just changed again.
She leapt up and began running. Twice she fell before she hit the ridge, her legs burning now as they came back alive. She ran over the ridge and felt marginally safer. As fast as she could, she ran back along her own track, terribly obvious to her. If they had seen her—or it—they’d have been able to come up on Benjamin, too, catching him unaware, after capturing or shooting or raping or running over her.
If only they’d been good guys. A wave of anger at herself swept through her. “Quit being such a goddamned infant, Coral,” she muttered. “It isn’t that world anymore.” There were exactly two nice guys remaining that she could be sure of—herself and Benjamin. She had to get that through her thick head.
She wondered where the Army guys were going. They had prisoners. How many? What if they had a lot of friends? A whole Army base of them? All of them with working vehicles and automatic rifles? Or tanks or grenades or rocket launchers? Most of them interested in replacing the poor worn-out Lupe with fresh meat—with Coral.
She and Benjamin would have to move, fast and far.
But when she came to camp, he wasn’t there yet.
