Peter Watts - Maelstrom

Nothing stopped after that. Dad wouldn't even stop to pick up food—there was food where they were going, he said, and they had to get there fast "before the wall came down". He was always talking like that, about how they were carving the world up into little cookie-cutter shapes , and how all those exotic weeds and bugs were giving them the excuse they needed to rope everybody off into little enclaves . Mom had always said it was amazing how he kept coming up with allthose full-blown conspiracy theories , but Tracy got the feeling that recent events kind of came down on Dad's side. She wasn't sure, though. It was all really confusing.

It had taken a long time to get up into the mountains. Lots of the roads were cracked and twisted so you couldn't drive on them, and other ones were already jammed with cars and buses and trucks; there were so many that Tracy didn't even see anyone glaring at their car, the way people usually did because well, honey, people don't know that I work way out in the woods, so when they see we have our own car they think we're just being wasteful and selfish. Dad took lots of back roads and before she knew it they were way off in the mountains, just old clear-cuts as far as you could see, all green and fuzzing up with carbon-eating kudzu. And Dad still hadn't stopped, except a few times to let Tracy out to pee and one time when he drove under some trees until a bunch of helicopters had gone by.

They hadn't stopped until they got here, to this little cabin in the woods by a lake— a glacial lake, Dad said. He said there were lots of these cabins, strung out along valley floors all through the mountains. A long time ago Park Rangers would ride around on horseback, making sure everything was okay and staying at a different cabin each night. Now, of course, regular people weren't allowed to go into the woods, so there was no need for rangers any more. But they still kept some cabins ready for visitors, for biologists who came into the woods to study the trees and things.

"So we're here on a kind of holiday," her dad said. "We'll just play it by ear, and we'll go hiking every day, and just explore and play until things settle down a bit back home."

"When will Mommy be here?" Tracy asked.

Her dad looked down at the brown pine needles all over the ground. "Mommy's gone, Lima-Bean," he said after a bit. "It's just us for a while."

"Okay," said Tracy.

She learned how to chop wood and start fires, both outside in the firepit and in the cabin's big black stove; it must have been over a hundred years old . She loved the smell of wood smoke, although she hated it when the wind changed and it got in her eyes. They went hiking in the woods almost every day, and they watched the stars come out at night. Tracy's dad thought the stars were something really special—"never get a view like this in the city, eh, Lima-bean?" — but the planetarium in Tracy's watch was actually nicer, even if you did have to wear eyephones to see it. Still, Tracy didn't complain; she could tell it was really important to Dad that she liked this whole holiday thing. So she smiled and nodded. Dad would be happy for a while.

At night, though, when they doubled up on the cot, he would hold her and hold her and not let go. Sometimes he hugged so tight it almost hurt; other times he'd just curl around her from behind, not moving at all, not squeezing but all tensed up.

Once Tracy woke up in the middle of the night and her dad was crying. He was wrapped around her and he didn't make a sound; but every now and then he would shudder a little bit, and tears would splash onto Tracy's neck. Tracy kept absolutely still, so her dad wouldn't know she was awake.

The next morning she asked him—as she still did, sometimes—when Mom would be coming. Her dad told her it was time to sweep the cabin.

Her mom never did show up. Someone else did, though.

They were cleaning up after supper. They'd spent all day hiking to the glacier at the far end of the lake, and Tracy was looking forward to going to bed. But there was no dishwasher in the cabin, so they had to clean all their dishes in the sink. Tracy was drying, looking out into the windy blackness on the other side of the window. If she looked really hard through the glass she could see a jagged little corner of dark gray sky, all hemmed in by black tree shapes jostling in the wind. Mostly, though, she just saw her own reflection looking back at her from the darkness, and the brightly lit inside of the cabin reflecting behind.

But then she looked down to wipe a plate, and her reflection didn't do the same thing.

She looked back up out the window. Her reflection looked wrong. Blurry, like there were two of them. And its eyes were wrong, too.

It's not me , Tracy thought, and felt a shudder run over her whole body.

There was something else out there, a ghost face, looking in—and when Tracy felt her eyes go wide and her mouth open ohhh that other face just kept looking back from the wind and the dark with no expression at all.

" Daddy ," she tried to say, but it came out a whisper.

At first Dad just looked at her. Then he looked at the window, and his mouth opened and his eyes went a little wide, too. But only for a moment. Then he was going to the door.

On the other side of the window, the floating ghost face turned to follow him.

"Daddy," Tracy said, and her voice sounded very small. "Please don't let it in."

" She , Lima bean. Not it ," her dad said. "And don't be silly. It's freezing out there."

It wasn't a ghost after all. It was a woman with short blond hair, just like Tracy's. She came through the door without a word; the wind outside tried to follow her in, but Tracy's dad shut it out.

Her eyes were white and empty. They reminded Tracy of the glacier at the end of the lake.

"Hi," Tracy's dad said. "Welcome to our, uh, home away from home."

"Thanks." The woman blinked over those scary white eyes. They must be contact lenses, Tracy decided. Like those ConTacs people wore sometimes. She'd never seen any so white.

"Well, of course it's not our home exactly, we're just here for a while, you know—are you with MNR?"

The woman tilted her head a bit, asking a question without opening her mouth. Except for the eyes, she looked like any other hiker Tracy had seen. Gore-Tex and backpack and all that stuff.

"Ministry of Natural Resources," Tracy's dad explained.

"No," the woman said.

"Well, I guess we're all trespassing together then, eh?"

The woman looked down at Tracy and smiled. "Hi there."

Tracy took a step back and bumped into her dad. Dad put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed as if to say it's okay .

The woman looked back up at Tracy's dad. Her smile was gone.

"I didn't mean to crash your party," the woman told him.

"Don't be silly. Actually, we've been here for a few weeks now. Hiking around. Exploring. Got out just before they sealed the border. I used to be a—that is, the Big One didn't leave much behind, eh? Everything's in such a jumble. But I knew about this place, did some contract work here once. So we're riding it out. Until things settle down."

The woman nodded.

"I'm Gord," said Tracy's dad. "And this is Tracy."

"Hello, Tracy," the woman said. She smiled again. "I guess I must look pretty strange to you, right?"

"It's okay," Tracy said. Her dad gave her another squeeze.

The woman's smile flickered a bit.

"Anyway," Dad said, "as I was saying, I'm Gord, and this is Tracy."

At first Tracy thought the strange woman wasn't going to answer. "Lenie," she said at last.