Frozen

The creatures were dressed in ragged clothing, stumbling and staggering with jerky, strange movements, some of them as small as children, and a few tall, wraith-like apparitions with hair the color of straw. And he wasn’t losing his mind—the vines were moving, swaying of their own volition.

“Thrillers?” asked Farouk.

Shakes began to hum a tune. “You know, that old song . . . ‘Thriller, thriller night.’” He began shaking his head and waving his arms while he sang. The Slaine brothers watched and laughed.

“All right, knock it off,” Wes grumbled.

“The lights that glow at night—are they from them?” Farouk asked.

Wes didn’t answer for a long time. “No one knows. Maybe.”

“But what made them that way?” Farouk asked, as the team stared at the strange, frightening creatures in the distance.

After a long silence, Wes finally answered. “Military does a bunch of chemical testing out here, could be they’re victims of the fallout, but the government won’t say or confirm any of the theories. I know one thing, though, they scare the hell out of anyone unlucky enough to run into them. Word is that’s why the army sent out nanobots in the first place; the thrillers were freaking out too many men. That’s why there’re very few seekers out here.”

He explained that the official explanation for the retreat from Garbage Country was toxin-induced schizophrenia. The chemicals that remained from the toxic floods were said to have driven the men to insanity. But there was no official mention of the shambling, horrific creatures roaming in the garbage. A few years later, the army developed the bot-based defense system. Exploding bombs and robots didn’t get nightmares and didn’t scream at the sight of a thriller.

“Bad news, boss,” Shakes said, looking up from the dashboard. “Looks like we’ve got a gas leak. Bullet must have grazed the tank. We’re not going to make it to the coast with what we’ve got left in the cans.”

They had been lucky to even get this far with what they had, Wes knew. “How much we got left?”

“A few miles at most.”

Wes sighed. “All right, I wasn’t planning to, but we’ll have to make a detour to one of the tent cities for supplies. K-Town isn’t too far, we’ll go there.”

“Whoop, whoop! K-Town!” Zedric yelled, throwing up his gun and catching it.

“What’s in K-Town?” Nat asked.

Wes smiled. So there were some places she hadn’t been. “You’ll see. You think New Vegas is the bomb, wait till you see the fireworks in K-Town.”

14

TO GET TO K-TOWN THEY WOULD HAVE TO CUT through what was once Los Angeles. The formerly sun- drenched city had been one of the hardest hit by the Flood, the waters submerging it almost completely. The truck had to make its way through the hilly, snowy terrain above the waterline. Zedric cranked up the stereo hooked to Daran’s player, and a loud dub-reggae hybrid, the Bob Marley Death-Metal Experience, throbbed inside the truck.

The music was angry and violent, in contrast to the gentle lyrics. Could you be loved?

It was a good question, Nat thought. Could you? Could she? Her gaze landed on Wes and she looked away. For a moment she had seen the two of them filling out day-pass forms, giggling, teasing each other, anticipating a night alone together. She shook the image from her head, annoyed that her thoughts kept turning back to him. Besides, she felt nothing for him, and never could. She’d only been flirting with him because maybe if he liked her he would think twice before tossing her overboard.

As the truck sped through the tundra, Nat looked out the window, relieving her anxiety by marveling at the relentless nature of the frozen environment: snow and more snow for miles around. In one of her old books she’d read that the Eskimos had a hundred words for it. She thought it was a shame they weren’t around to see this: so many different kinds. The white virgin powder on the rooftops contrasted with the hard ice on the ground. The snow rolled over roofs and cars with no interruption, just a white expanse, a visible blankness. Once in a while, she saw footprints, animal trails maybe, although there were some too big, their patterns too deliberate, to be anything but human. She thought of the thrillers they’d left back in the snow-covered desert and shuddered. Wes was right to hope they wouldn’t run into any.

When she was still in school, she’d learned about a town in Ukraine called Chernobyl, where a nuclear reactor had exploded. The place was so radioactive that it wouldn’t be fit for humans for hundreds of years and it was still off-limits now. The whole area was declared an exclusion zone, an evacuated land where no one was allowed to live. In reality, though, the Chernobyl exclusion zone teemed with life. With the absence of humanity, wildlife flourished and the toxic landscape became a kind of animal preserve. Looking at the trails in the snow, she wondered whether Garbage Country was the same. She wondered what kind of life was flourishing here.

Nat didn’t have to wonder for long, as a polar bear materialized from the snow, its burly white body moving with lightning speed. She gasped in surprise—she had never seen an animal up close before.

“What is it?” Wes asked, just as the truck swerved to a stop.

Shakes muttered curses as he turned off the engine, and he and Wes hopped out to see what had happened. Nat followed, watching as Shakes kicked away a mound of snow from the left front wheel to reveal a thick fork of rebar wedged into the front tire.

“’Rouk! Zed! Dar!” Wes called. “C’mon, we need help out here.”

As the boys pulled shovels from the trunk and began working to free the trapped tire, Nat stepped away. Where was the bear?

She scanned the horizon, but saw nothing.

Behind her, she heard curses mixed with the whine of crushing metal. She looked back at the tire. The entire crew had gathered around the trapped wheel. Farouk, Daran, and Zedric were shoveling snow while Shakes worked to free the metal rod that had ground its way into the tire.

Nat took the binoculars to scan for the bear. There it was! She smiled in delight as the polar bear bounded over a mountain of snow. It paused, looked around—twitched nervously. From behind, she heard Wes warn, “Best to stay in the truck.” Nat ignored him.

“Just a moment, I’ve never seen one this close.” She walked closer to the bear.

Without warning, the mighty white animal turned and bounded forward. She stood stock-still, wide-eyed, staring at the creature until too late—she realized the bear was coming directly at her. Pushing a pile of snow ahead of it, the bear leapt forward, its mouth open, tongue out, and teeth bared. It roared. She stood transfixed, unable to move, staring death in the face.

“Nat!” Wes called, but it was too late. She heard a pop, like thunder, echo across the snow. The bear skidded toward her, it warm red nose colliding with her foot, a steady stream of red fluid pouring from its head, mottling its once pristine coat with thick clumps of blood.

Dead.

She was safe.

She turned to Wes, but saw that his gun was holstered; the rest of the crew were still working on the tire. None of them had fired the shot.

A pair of white hooded figures appeared in the far distance. They wore thick goggles—military grade, heat and low-light lenses. They were at least a quarter mile away. She saw one drop his rifle and wave his fist in the air. Was he cheering? What was going on?

She turned to Wes. “Seekers?”

“Nope, caravan hunters.” He knelt down to hide, and she did the same. “You’re lucky you didn’t get hit in the crossfire. We need to go; they’ll be coming for it.” He called out to Shakes, “Get that wheel free, now! We need to move.” The rebar had not moved from the tire.

She turned back to the hunters.

A second pop rang out in the distance. They’d shot a second bear, closer to them, nearly at their feet. The