Tye called a halt for the night. A huge boulder stood like a sentinel on the western side of the cut in the land, and they built a hasty lean-to against it. It was out of the wind, and while Tye and Tester constructed their shelter, Ingo, Robin and Jerimiah made a wall of snow around it and gathered wood. As the sun set, they all sat beside the fire.
Milly hadn’t seen any virals since they’d escaped through the Washington Metro, though the wildlife was plentiful and aggressive. Jerimiah said the winters were too harsh for the virals and they hid from the cold underground and in caves.
“Any fresh venison left?” Milly asked.
“Nope. Bone marrow and smoked venison soup tonight,” Tester said. Ingo placed the metal cookpot over the fire and fed it snow.
“There’s plenty of game out here, but they’re hunkered down beneath underbrush in the hollows and burrows out of the wind and snow,” Jerimiah said.
“Ever see an animal with XK119?” Tye asked.
“Nope,” Jerimiah said. “In fact, our demise served the animal kingdom well. Most species flourished after man disappeared, all except the ones that lived off our waste, or needed us to feed them. Rats, cockroaches, small dogs, guinea pigs, anything domesticated had major problems when their masters passed on.”
Milly stared through the cracks in their makeshift roof, searching for stars through breaks in the clouds. “What day is it, Tester? Do you still keep track?”
“Yeah, I still keep track. It’s February 27th,” he said.
“Why bother?” Robin said.
“Never know when the information might be handy,” Tye said.
“Old habits die hard,” Tester said.
The fire cracked and popped, and Milly thought of home, and of the Perpetual Flame and the Womb. She saw it all so clearly, every patch of herbs and tomatoes, every trickle of water that fell into the basin, yet she couldn’t remember the color of Curso’s eyes, or when he’d been born. Everyone she loved had been wiped away and all that remained was ten years of searching and yearning. She soothed herself with the fantasy that when she got home all she’d forgotten would be renewed, but what if Curso didn’t remember her? What if Randy didn’t want to remember her?
Milly was the last to fall asleep, and in her mind, she tried to make music of her companion’s snores, breaths, and farts. Wind tore at their shelter, and snow leaked through a million cracks and covered her in a thin blanket of snow. Her last thought as darkness washed over her was of the day she took her leap of faith. The water had been so very cold. If things had gone as intended, Randy would soon feel that cold water biting at his senses. She’d be there in spirit, but she knew that would be of no help to her son.
The next day dawned bleak and frozen. The snow stopped, but the storm left behind huge drifts and it took an hour just to dig out of the lean-to. Milly started a fire and cooked breakfast, Pepper and Turnip’s eyes on her the entire time. They were down to their last rations and a morning portion couldn’t be spared for the animals.
They were slow to get started. Their lean-to was warm and somewhat dry and getting Robin and Tester out of their bedrolls proved to be a challenge. So much so that Tye and Jerimiah conferred about whether it made sense to stay put for the day and rest up. Milly had interjected, and with her support she and Jerimiah convinced Tye to continue on. In Milly’s experience it was too easy for one day to lead to two, then three. They’d lost over six years due mainly to a routine; not one of comfort, but of survival. Surviving trumped being an outcast with no food, water, or future, and this made places like Stadium easy to get used to. She couldn’t let that happen so close to the end of the road, even if it meant a delay of only a few days.
Midday found the fellowship fighting a sea of snow up the steep incline of old county road 301. The tops of rusted metal guardrails marked the edges of the road, and beyond, deep green pine and spruce dotted a forest of leaf-bare hickory and stunted-oak. Rays of sunlight broke through the cloud cover, casting targeted energy beams on the frozen land. She remembered sunshine, its warmth on her skin, pink skies inside her closed eyelids. She missed the sand between her toes, the rush and pull of the water tugging on sea shells and rocks, the rattle of palm leaves, and the sweet smell of the sea.
“What was the purpose of Fort Hill before the end?” Ingo said.
“There was a base called Mount Weather Emergency Ops Center. Everyone thought the bigwigs would hide there when things crashed. Fort Hill was really where the elite wanted to be,” Jerimiah said. “Most of them never made it, and many who did weren’t admitted.”
“Who stopped them?” Milly asked.
“You’re about to find out. We’re here,” Jerimiah said.
To their left, the guardrail disappeared under snow and the forest gave way to a road. Larry squawked overhead and landed on a pile of snow to their right. Thin leaf-bare oak surrounded a giant snow-covered piece of green metal which had a long cylinder sticking from its front end. The road was maintained and cleared of snow, and before them stood a fortification of wood, cement, and debris. Two greenies stood guard outside the checkpoint, and a white box with a glass front was mounted on the wall behind them and it rotated back and forth.
“That’s an old tank there,” Tester said. He pointed to the left of the fort’s entrance at
