Hugh Howey - Half Way Home

I scrambled down the ladder, dropping from a few rungs up and into a puddle, then rushed out to meet him.

“Porter!” he said as soon as he recognized me.

I clasped his arms and beamed at him, the rain just starting to get him wet. “Where’s Mica?” I asked.

“In the mines where it’s dry. She—” He shook his head and looked past me toward the dozers. “Who all is that with you? Is Julie there? Did Colony send you guys?”

I shook my head. “Colony didn’t send us. We ran, just like you.” I thought about his other question, and the fact that Julie was the nearest thing we had to a doctor. “Is Mica okay?” I asked, pulling him with me toward the dozer.

“She hurt her chest in a fall up on the canopy. She—well, let’s get you guys in the mine. Is Julie—?”

“She’s not with us,” I said. We ducked our heads under the rear of the dozer, the metal shell reverberating with shouts of joy once everyone recognized Peter. I helped Tarsi out, and the others followed, each taking turns greeting Peter and transferring some of our mud and wetness to him.

“Where’s Mica?” someone asked.

“Gather your stuff up,” Peter said. “Let’s get into the mines where it’s dry. This way.” He hurried off through the downpour.

We splashed through the mud after him; I deliberately ran through a few puddles to wash the caked mud out between my toes. Tarsi and Kelvin jogged along beside me, Kelvin having a hard time with his heavy pack full of raw vinnie meat.

A few hundred feet past the clearing, where the stone face of a small rise jutted up from the grasses, the open mine could barely be seen. I only spotted it by looking the direction in which Peter was heading.

The mouth of the mine was just a darker rectangle on the charcoal rock; it looked like nothing more than a shadow cast upon a shadow. Then we were nearly upon it, and I could see the perfectly square hole cut out by the mining dozers. We hurried inside, through a puddle of collected rain that came up to our shins, and then up a gentle slope. Beyond, the mine leveled out and began its plummet into the mountain.

At the top of the rise, a dying fire let off a bit of smoke but hardly any light. A form lay beside the fire, flat on its back. I shook my head vigorously and pulled off my shirt, wringing the water out of it as I approached Mica. Kelvin and Tarsi walked with me; the others stopped by the pool of water to wash the mud off their feet.

The three of us huddled around Mica, who had her eyes closed and her hands clasped over her sternum. Peter watched us from below, where the others bombarded him with questions, their voices echoing off the rocks in a sharp cacophony.

Mica’s eyes cracked open; she looked up at us, her eyes wide with surprise. “Kelvin? Porter?” Her voice came out as nothing more than a mere whisper.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, kneeling down beside her.

“Cracked a rib, I think.” She coughed, her shoulders arching back as her chest lifted up from the bed of grasses beneath her. The agony on her face as she fought to suppress the spasms made me wince with empathized pain. I rested my hands on her arm and looked down the rise toward Peter, only to see him excusing himself from the others and hurrying up toward us.

“What happened?” Kelvin asked.

“Fell in a hole up in the canopy,” she said hoarsely. “Just a bruise, I thought. Been getting worse.”

Peter joined us at her side; he reached for a pouch of water and held it to her lips. Mica obliged him by taking a few sips before she waved him away.

“Can you get an infection without breaking the skin?” Peter asked the three of us.

I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” Tarsi said, “but lots could be going on inside her.” She reached down and grabbed the hem of Mica’s top and slid it up her stomach all the way to her breasts. She dropped the hem of the shirt and covered her mouth—we all gasped at the sight.

We were used to the sight of malnourishment, but Mica looked like she hadn’t eaten at all in days. Ribs had become ridges; her muscles were concave. As she sucked in a painful breath, I half expected to see her spine rise up along her emaciated stomach. The nasty contusion on her chest just turned the sad into the dreadful. One side of Mica’s torso was a dozen shades of purples, blacks, and reds. It looked like a bruise that had come to life and spread as a virus might.

“That’s more than cracked,” Kelvin said. “How far did you fall?”

Mica swung her eyes to look at Peter, who glanced at Kelvin. “Ten feet? Maybe more?”

Kelvin glared at me, no doubt thinking I was lucky to not be in her condition.

“I don’t know what to do,” Peter said. “When I saw you guys, I figured a group from the colony had come to take us back in. Part of me—I was actually hoping you were—”

Mica waved him off, then started coughing again, causing all of us to tense up. Bone and bruise seemed to writhe under her skin with each spasm. Peter put his hand under her neck and brought the water to her lips as several of the others joined us by the sad excuse for a fire. Leila crouched down, patted Mica’s foot, and whispered a greeting.

“What were you hoping?” I asked Peter.

“That you’d take us back to the colony and fix her,” he said.

“I’d rather die right here,” she croaked.

I looked at the fire, which was nothing more than a pile of smoldering grasses. There were some scrub bushes growing beyond the edge of the canopy that seemed to contain a bit of wood, but all of it had been soaked by the rain. We needed to dry out, get some food in us, and rest up.

“I’m not letting you die right here, so stop talking like that,” Peter told Mica. “In fact, just stop talking.” He gently pulled her shirt back down and turned to us. “If you guys hadn’t shown up, I was thinking about breaking into the dozer and using the radio to tell Hickson where to find us.”

Mica shook her head but didn’t say anything.

“He’s as liable to shoot her as patch her up,” Kelvin said.

“We need to get that fire going,” I said. “Let’s dry everyone out, get her some decent food and water.”

“Decent food?” Peter scanned our faces. “You got something besides bombfruit?”

“Vinnie meat,” Kelvin said. He swung his pack around and pulled out one of the leaf-wrapped cuts.

“Is that what you call the fuzzies?” Peter asked.

Kelvin nodded. “After Vincent. But I like fuzzies better. Or just giant-ass caterpillars.”

“While you guys are playing taxonomist, I’m going to work on the fire,” I said. “I need your machete.” I held my hand out to Kelvin, who gave it to me handle-first.

“You got a source on dry wood?” he asked.

“I’m hoping it’s only wet on the outside,” I said. “I’m gonna round up some of those little trees out there, bring them back in here and skin ‘em.”

“Good idea,” he said. “I’ll help.”

“Well, then I’m heading back to the canopy to get some bombfruit,” Tarsi said. “We need the husks to get anything started.”

I looked out the mine’s entrance, back toward the tree in the distance. It would take her at least an hour to get to the very edge of the canopy and back. I wanted to veto the idea but knew she was right. Relenting, I nodded. “Take someone with you.”

Tarsi smiled and pecked me on the cheek. Kelvin and I went down the slight rise and recruited the boys by the pool. Together, we sloshed through the water and back into the rain, so fixated on helping Mica we had completely forgotten about our cold and wet exhaustion.

Another thing I had forgotten about in all the excitement was the sound of the tractor engine I’d heard from the canopy. The one making its slow but steady way around the massive trees and toward us.