Chapter 22
That night the Rock Star told the story of a great ship she had once sailed on that crossed the unseen ocean to a country far away. She told of fine dresses she wore and an evil prince who wanted to marry her. Instead, she chose a young poor boy, fair and bold, for her lover. But the evil prince murdered the poor boy.
The wind and the night closed about their small circle of fire next to the lake in the mountains, as the first hints of rain began to slap against the water and the sand. The Rock Star rose above the circle, seeming imperious. Seeming grand. Seeming once the young woman of the story.
“And I called an ice mountain out of the sea to come and attack the ship and slay the evil princeling. When my monster’d finished, that great ship slid beneath the waves with a titanic crash, like ice breaking off the high glaciers. Only I alone escaped in a boat, and every one of them fancies, all of ’em, drowned beneath the icy waters of that ocean, ’cept for me, and me alone.”
IN THE MORNING when the Boy awoke, the hunters were packing, making a somber noise within the quiet village of the high mountain lake.
Jason pushed aside the blanket at the entrance to the old chief’s hut.
“We
The Boy gathered his things into his pack and went out to Horse.
Whispering and patting the animal, he promised to take care of them both.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered to Horse.
Horse regarded him, then snorted slightly and turned away to watch some new thing that might be more interesting.
Soon the hunters, carrying the Rock Star on a pallet, were waving goodbye to the tight-jawed women and crying children.
Following, the Boy rode Horse, his bearskin flapping in the strong wind that came off the lake.
THE COMPANY OF hunters, with their skins and spears and bones of small animals knocking together in the wind whipping past their carried totems, skirted the lake along an old winding highway heading south. Soon they climbed up through a trail that led alongside high waterfalls, and when they crested the pass, they saw a long line of mountains falling away to the south.
Finding old crumbling roads when they could and keeping mostly south, the company trekked along the face of the high mountains, sometimes weaving down into the foothills, never daring to approach the valley floor.
The day was long gone to late winter cold when they stopped in a stand of pines alongside a mountain highway. The withered side of the Boy was stiff and aching. He got down from Horse and walked away from their forming camp. When the Boy looked behind him, he could see at least one of the hunters trailing, as if gathering firewood.
I’ll be patient. When the time comes, and it will, I’ll make a run, Sergeant.
There was no response from the voice of Sergeant Presley.
And yet there is something exciting about all of this, Sergeant. If these people are against the Chinese, then wouldn’t that be good intel for I Corps and the Army?
The Boy didn’t dare bring out the map secreted inside the pouch he’d made within the bear cloak. From his memory of it, he knew they were skirting south through the mountains. On the western side of their progress lay the long valley and many of the great cities of the past along the coast beyond. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and far San Diego, all in the State of California.
I should complete the mission. Find I Corps like you said, Sergeant.
Later, in the guttering light of the campfire, the Rock Star told of a night when the dead had walked the earth, coming out of their graves to clutch at her. She had hidden in a great palace of wonders she called the Fashion Hill Place Mall. The zombies, a relentless army of crawling undead, surrounded her and a band of other survivors. Using her great fire-spitting powers, she kept the other survivors safe against the relentless dead. But in the end, the survivors had each died as a result of their own folly.
There was Pete, who tried to make a run for the parking lot, done to death by a horde of zombies he didn’t see.
There was Fawn, who wouldn’t share the sweet treats of the food court, pulled into an ice cave by a corpse who wasn’t all dead.
There was Mark, who tried to have his way with the Rock Star, who was then a wild young girl with red hair. Mark was thrown from the top of the parking structure into a sea of the once human.
“And one day I flew away in a machine from the Before. Right off the roof of the mall. Rescued by myself because they wouldn’t listen to me. Didn’t have to be that way. But it was.”
THE DAYS THAT followed were a long, slow crawl across the face of the mountains beneath the alpine tree line. High above them, snow clung to the tallest peaks, and still at the base of the trees they found piles of the stuff hiding in the permanent shade.
Chapter 23
On the last night, the night before the long climb up into the high valley, the Boy woke. Against the wide dark blue sky of frosty night, the wind swept clouds swiftly across the night. The dark shadow of Horse stirred for a moment.
For the thousandth time the Boy thought now might be the time to leave.
He did not hear the voice of Sergeant Presley.
Maybe I have gone too far down a road I should’ve never traveled. Maybe the voice of Sergeant Presley has finished with me.
Maybe I have gone too far.
The fire was low and the Boy saw the Rock Star, mouth open, staring into the glowing embers.
For a while he lay still, but his weak side was stiff and cold.
How much of the night was left?
He drank cold water from his bag and limped over to the fire to warm his cursed weak side.
All around, the hunters slept. The Boy knew two or three were watching him, watching with the poison on nearby and ready arrows.
The hunters had kept their distance over much of this cold trek across the western face of the Sierras.
Poison.
The Rock Star began to speak.
She did not look at the Boy.
She stared into the flames after he added a log and sparks rose on the night wind.
“I was a girl—little more than—on the day it all went down.”
She swallowed. Her old face was hollow and dry like an empty water skin drained by time.
“I was a survivor though, even before all of the war that come. A survivor in a wasteland of malls and perfect families. My mother worked all the time. Worked so much I never saw her. We communicated by notes left on a little table in our tiny kitchen. One year I left the same note over and over and she never noticed.”
The Boy rubbed his weak calf, working the heat of his good hand into the thin muscle.
“I lived at the mall. I was there when it opened, and there was many a time I was the last out the door at closing. Frank. Frank let me out. Told me to go on home.
“When it all went to hell, we ran. We ran for the mountains. I was in the San Gabriel Foothills when one of them bombs went off south of Los Angeles. We were climbing on our hands and knees. I saw a flash light up
