“It came from over there,” he whispered, pointing to the north side of the road. “One of the farms I told you about.”
“So we’re close?”
“Not nearly, but we’re on the right track. We follow this road west until … until we smell seawater, I guess. If you’d told me we were coming out here tonight, I’d have brought a map.”
“West, then,” said Kira, “and quietly.”
They followed the winding road until it reached a new stretch of buildings, though even here the road was still heavily forested, and the buildings removed from the road. They rose empty and ominous from the trees, too far from arable land to be useful as farms, yet too close to the North Shore to be useful as anything else. Even bandits stayed away from here.
They continued in silence. A mile or so later the road crossed a major street, and the old world had commemorated the occasion with a strip mall, now cracked and crumbling. They debated heading north, but Jayden insisted they stay west for another mile at least.
“If we go north too soon we could get trapped in the middle of the farms, away from the water,” he said. “What was your plan, just go north until you ran out of land?”
“Pretty much,” said Kira. “There are boats everywhere.”
They heard a low rumble from behind them; an engine.
“They’re closer than I thought,” said Jayden, “and that engine sound means they’re using the jeeps. They must really be serious.” He paused, sucking in a breath. “They have maps and we don’t, they have the advantage. I admit that. But I promise you: If we go north now, we’ll get trapped between the soldiers and the farms. Someone is bound to find us.”
“This looks like it used to be a housing development behind the strip mall,” said Marcus. “We can weave through there and avoid most of their patrols.”
“Are you sure they’re not tracking us?” asked Samm. “They should be going slower than this if they’re stopping to search.”
“They don’t have to search for us, they know where we’re going,” said Xochi, echoing Kira’s thoughts from earlier. “They’re trying to reach the water first.”
“Then we go north,” said Samm. “We need to stay ahead of them.”
“You’re the boss,” said Jayden, but she could tell he didn’t like it. They stuck to the main road now, practically jogging to keep the right pace. The wide street was relatively clear, and they could move quickly even in the dim light. Xochi and Marcus were breathing heavily, struggling to keep up, and Kira was wincing with every other step, feeling lances of pain through her burned leg every time it hit the ground. Soon they heard more engines behind them, getting closer each minute, and the next time Kira turned, she saw lights behind them like glowing eyes.
“Get off the road,” she grunted, and the group dove into the greenery, burying themselves behind tree trunks and kudzu. Three small jeeps roared past, engines snarling like wild animals. Kira counted four or five soldiers in each one.
“They’re not even looking for us,” said Kira.
Marcus leaned out to peer back down the road. “Nothing behind them. You think it’s a coincidence?”
“They’re trying to cut us off,” said Samm. “The only good news is that them being here means we’re probably on the right path.”
“Doesn’t do us any good now,” said Jayden. “We have to go west.”
“We don’t know what’s west of here,” said Kira. “For all we know we’d be running straight into the Grid army. These could just be outriders.”
“It’s smarter to stay on the path northward,” Samm agreed. “At least this way we know what we’re getting into.”
“Okay,” said Marcus, “but we stay in the trees. Now that they’re ahead of us, they could be waiting somewhere and watching the road.”
The trees slowed them down, and they moved almost by feel through the thick woods. Several times they had to cross side streets, and every time Kira held her breath, certain they would hear a cry of alarm, or worse yet a gunshot. Nothing came. When they reached a long stretch of ruins — old shops and offices — they crossed the main road to the far side, sticking to the cover of the woods.
Eventually even those woods thinned, and Kira looked out across a wide expanse of streets and cross streets and flat, empty parking lots. Squat buildings rose up like fat, sagging mushrooms, and the pavement was cracked and dotted with weeds and trees, but even so it was terrifyingly open.
“Another strip mall,” she whispered. “We can’t cross this.”
“You want to go around?” asked Marcus, crouching down to catch his breath. “Or just turn west? We’ve been walking north for miles now, surely we’re close to the bay Jayden was talking about.”
“That or we’ve gone too far,” said Jayden, “and we’re about to run straight into the farms.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can go,” said Xochi. Kira could barely see her face in the darkness, but her voice was starting to slur with exhaustion.
“We can’t stop,” Samm insisted.
“We don’t have your endurance,” said Jayden. “I’ve trained for this, but they could collapse at any moment. We’ve been running for what, nine miles? Ten?”
“Eight point four,” said Samm. He didn’t even seem tired.
“I’m fine,” wheezed Marcus, but Kira thought he looked ready to fall over. Xochi could barely even talk.
“We go west,” said Kira. “The sooner we get into a boat, the sooner we can rest.”
Xochi nodded and lurched forward, pained but determined. Samm jogged forward to take the lead, and the rest fell into a slow, limping line behind him.
The side road slanted west around the strip mall, then slowly curved south again. Samm gave another signal and then dropped into the bushes, waiting in tense, rasping silence as a pair of horses clopped past them. They waited longer, giving the horses time to get far ahead, then crawled to their feet and pressed forward, shambling painfully on legs too tired to move any faster. Kira’s burn was agonizing now, an unrelenting fire deep inside her leg. She curled her hands into tight fists, taking short breaths and trying not to think about it.
“I can smell the ocean,” said Samm, and soon Kira could as well — salty and heavy, cool and bracing in the night air. They redoubled their efforts, panting loudly, no longer caring about stealth but simply trying not to stop. The trees gave way to another shopping center, and another beyond that. Marcus walked closer to Kira now, shaky as well but doing his best to support her. She clung to his arm and hobbled forward.
“This way,” said Samm, turning north on the next road. Moonlight glistened on a silver expanse of water, smooth as black glass, and Kira looked eagerly for a boat. There was nothing.
“It’s too shallow here,” she panted. “We have to keep going.”
“‘Boats all over the North Shore,’” Jayden muttered. Kira didn’t have the breath to respond.
Samm led them through a wide courtyard, wading through waist-high saplings with buildings on every side. They heard more hoofbeats on the road behind them, and they collapsed into the underbrush with abject exhaustion. This time the riders stopped, their horses slowly turning as they examined the area.
“Think it was them?” said one.
“That or a cat,” said the other. They eased their horses closer, still looking around. Moonlight glinted faintly off the long metal lines of their rifles.
“Too much noise for a cat,” said the first. “Give me the light.”
Kira didn’t dare to move or even breathe. The second rider pulled a flashlight from his saddlebag and handed it to the first, who clicked it on and shined it at the building on their left — a church of some kind, broken and leafy. Samm moved his rifle into position, sighting carefully at the first rider, but Kira shook her head:
There was a soft knock on a far wall, and the riders looked up in unison. They shined the light on the building, but Kira couldn’t see anything. They led their horses toward it, and Xochi whispered softly.
“I threw a rock. Let’s get out of here before they come back.”
