“How much farther?” Lars asked Rachel.
“Hard to tell,” Rachel answered from behind him. She worked the paddle only to keep the canoe pointed downstream, since the current was strong enough to carry them. The water was like green glass under the aurora, its surface shimmering in a reflection of the sky. With the lack of electric lights, they might have been traveling the river as it was ten thousand years ago.
“Your boyfriend said an hour, and it feels like twice that already.”
Lars had finished two beers since they’d set out, tossing the empties into the river as if littering was acceptable now. Once, he’d unzipped his pants and leaned over the bow to urinate, nearly tipping them. DeVontay and Tara’s canoe was a good thirty yards ahead, so they missed the circus sideshow.
“Just keep your voice down and keep your eyes open for the rocks,” Rachel said. “We’re lucky enough that the birds didn’t see us, but we still have to get there.
She wondered if she should have led the procession, given that she could remove her sunglasses and light the way if necessary. But that would have revealed their passage to anyone along the riverbank.
“So how did you guys end up together?” Lars asked, evidently bored with their nature outing.
“We ran into each other in Charlotte right after it happened, and we just ended up surviving together.” She debated how much to tell him, and then decided if they were going to be allies, she could share part of the truth. “We were headed to my grandfather’s compound in the mountains near the Blue Ridge Parkway. He’s old-school survivalist, pre-Y2K. Even got in trouble with the Feds for a little dalliance with the Patriot Movement in the nineties.”
“So the compound worked? He made it?”
“Yeah, he’s still alive.” As far as I know. I haven’t seen him in a week, and things change fast these days.
“So if the compound’s working out so well, why do you need to come to Stonewall for supplies?”
“I told you, we’re looking for other survivors. My grandfather’s not too crazy about it, says it’s just more mouths to feed, but me and DeVontay believe if we want to be real humans, we need a civilization of some kind.”
Lars laughed, which harmonized with the gurgling, rippling current that carried them east. “What does your grandfather think of…you know…that?” Lars waved to indicate his own eyes, and then hers.
“He accepts me for what I am.”
“Man, I need to work on being more open-minded, I guess. I’ve always thought the only good Zap is a dead Zap. Nothing personal.”
Rachel didn’t answer, intent on guiding the canoe down a narrow channel between two walls of rock. Even though the river had grown wider, the boulders were more frequent, creating chutes of foaming rapids that opened onto cold, deep pools. Ahead, DeVontay’s canoe bucked and dipped as it entered a corrugated stretch of turbulent water.
“Hang on,” Rachel said, digging her paddle into the riffle and angling hard to turn the bow away from the shore. “Let me take it.”
But Lars ignored her, due either to drunkenness or macho defiance, and jammed his paddle into the water on the same side she was working. The canoe spun sideways and the current jammed it against an upward slope of mossy stone. They were stuck for several seconds, taking on cold water that made Lars howl in shock.
Maybe we should have left his drunk ass.
Rachel finally wedged her paddle handle in a cleft and maneuvered the boat into steady water. “Let me take it,” she said.
Lars rested his paddle across the gunwales and leaned forward, looking into the water. Ahead, DeVontay and Tara floated idly in a pool, waiting for them to catch up.
Rachel used her paddle as a rudder, turning the canoe to starboard. The boat dipped as if they’d hit a little waterfall, settling with a splash.
“Whoa,” Lars said. “I’m going to puke if you keep that up.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
The rear of the boat rose, pitching her forward, and then the bow dipped enough to take on water. Lars bellowed a curse while Rachel struggled to keep a grip on her paddle. Her rifle slid along the bottom of the boat into the collected water.
Lars turned. “Do I have to make a joke about women drivers—”
The tentacle rose up behind him, wrapped him in a serpentine coil, and plucked him over the side before Rachel could even shout a warning. The tentacle had been as thick as her wrist, dull gray under the aurora glow, and glistening with tiny suckers. She yelled his name, which caused Tara and DeVontay to start yelling.
Rachel didn’t take the time to consider that Lars had annoyed her to the point she wished they’d left him, or that he likely wasn’t going to end up joining them at the bunker. All she knew was that he was in danger.
If she was going to be human, she’d be human all the way.
She dove into the brisk water, which chilled her almost to the point of numbness. She was careful not to strike her head on a rock, since she didn’t know the water’s depth. But she figured if a creature that size could live in it, it was probably over her head.
Rachel touched bottom and spun, squinting into the murk. The water stung her eyes, but they projected light below just like they did above, only with diminished range. A froth of bubbles trailed away to her left, and she kicked and stroked ferociously after it.
Then she saw it, clinging to its prize. It perched on the sandy bottom, four long arms supporting it, two others clutching Lars, who struggled and shook his head, his wild hair flailing in the current. His arms were pinned to his side, but he kicked for all he was worth against the bulbous head of the river-squid.
The aquatic beast sported jiggling gelatin eyes on each side of its head and prominent beak that looked as hard as a mollusk shell. Its two unoccupied arms wafted along the currents as if daring Rachel to come closer.
She drew her machete from its sheath and took the dare.
The machete wasn’t the best weapon for the situation, since resistance would slow her swing, but she didn’t have time to surface, collect her rifle, and hope it would fire ten feet underwater. She’d had time to fill her lungs, but Lars would be out of air if she didn’t act now.
One of the gray arms swept out at her, the tip curling toward her neck, but she ducked and slashed the blade along its length. A dark, inky fluid billowed out and clouded her vision before it was swept downstream. The other arm came in low, and she allowed it to wrap around one leg and pull her toward the gleaming beak.
She gripped the machete in both hands and skewered the river-squid between the eyes. The blade penetrated the rubbery skin and she worked the blade like a lever, opening the wound and causing a damaging and probably toxic leak.
The creature released Lars, who immediately drew his axe and pinned one of the arms against a rock, wiggling the blade back and forth until the limb severed. Then he kicked toward the surface, and Rachel followed him, undulating between the listless tentacles.
DeVontay’s canoe was waiting when she broke water, grabbing her, leaning to balance the boat, and pulling her aboard. Lars, nearly pulled under again by the weight of his axe, did a one-handed dogpaddle until he reached waist-deep water, then he waded to shore coughing up water.
“What the hell was that thing?” DeVontay asked.
In the scientific tradition of the pre-Doomsday Planet Earth, scientists were usually allowed the honor of naming any new species they discovered. Rachel hoped she’d just discovered a species at the same time it was going extinct, because she didn’t want to see another as long as she lived.
“Sushi,” she said.
“There goes your canoe,” Tara said, as the other vessel vanished into the distant darkness downstream.
“Never mind,” DeVontay said. “We’re here.”
He pointed to the bridge that was just barely visible in the rising mist.