Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

I clamped both arms around James and ran for the back door. Reinforcements were already coming in from across the camp. I pushed James into the truck’s passenger seat with Bear and slammed the door. The sentries at the main gate were moving into position. I pulled James’s seat belt over him and Bear and cranked the engine. Shots crackled behind us, slamming into the cages in back. I hit the gas.

“Cal, this is crazy. You have to stop!”

“Put your head down!”

Rounds pinged off the side of the truck as the sentries began firing. When it became clear that I wasn’t stopping, they fired a few more rounds, then dodged out of the way.

There was a squeal of metal as we hit the gate and tore it from its moorings. I kept my foot hard on the gas, and we were through, dragging pieces of torn steel behind us. The highway west was only minutes away.

“This isn’t going to work,” James said. He was pressed into the passenger-side corner, Bear in his lap. “Seriously, how do you see this ending? We can’t—”

Rotating red and blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror, followed by wailing sirens. Military Police. My stomach tightened.

“Cal?”

The lights grew brighter as they gained on us, filling the inside of the truck. The exit onto the highway was just ahead.

“You can’t outrun them,” James said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not like you can lose them. What happens when they get a chopper in the air?”

“They’re not sending a chopper after two kids in a stolen truck.”

“PULL OVER!” an MP announced over his loudspeaker. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.”

I swerved at the last second and took the highway exit. The MP overshot it, but as I accelerated down the ramp and onto an empty two-lane road, I heard his brakes squeal. It was only seconds before the MP’s lights emerged in the rearview again. The truck’s engine revved as the speedometer climbed past seventy, then eighty. It hit ninety and the truck began to shake. Still, the MP drew closer.

“Even if we made it to the border,” James said calmly, “no one will let us across. Monroe will listen to you, Cal. I promise.”

“When did you do it?” I asked. “When did you trade Mom and Dad for him?”

“I didn’t,” James said. “I grew up. That’s all.”

The panic that had been fueling me began to drain away, replaced by a buzzing numbness. My foot eased off the gas and the truck slowed. Eighty-five. Eighty. The MP cruiser was moving alongside us now, its bumper approaching my door.

“It’s okay,” James said soothingly. “We’ll go back home and everything will be just like it was.”

Just the sound of that word in his mouth, home , and something inside of me went molten. I glanced out the side window. The cruiser had pulled even and was moving ahead.

“Hold on to Bear,” I said.

“What? Cal—”

I jerked the wheel, hurling us into the side of the cruiser. There was a shriek as metal hit metal and then a split second of weightlessness before the seat belt yanked me back. James’s screams, mixed with the glass and steel crash. Everything was lit by the red and blue of the police lights until they winked out and everything went dark.

We ended up sideways in the middle of the road. The windshield was a spiderweb of fractures, and smoke poured out of the hood. James was slumped in his seat, dead pale with his arms clapped around Bear.

The cruiser was twenty feet down the road, flipped upside down at the end of a trail of shattered glass and torn metal. The windows were smashed and I couldn’t see anyone moving inside.

“James? Are you okay?”

He moaned. I pushed open my door, but my legs were useless. I collapsed the second they hit asphalt. I lay facedown, every nerve in my body buzzing at once. No time , I thought, nearly delirious. Got to move. Glass crunched under my palm as I forced myself up. I kept one eye on the cruiser as I came around the front of the truck, like it was a monster that could come to life any second.

Bear was as dazed as James, whimpering and shaking as I lifted him out of the truck. I checked him for injuries but found only cuts and scrapes. I set him down by the side of the road, then undid James’s seat belt. He fell into my arms and I eased him down beside Bear and grabbed our backpacks. I got mine on and staggered out into the roadway.

“Come on,” I said, draping the backpack over James’s shoulders. “We have to go.”

“No,” he mumbled, nodding listlessly toward the wrecked MP cruiser. “We have to stay. Have to help them.”

I stared at the cruiser. There was still no movement inside. No sound.

“They’re fine,” I said. “Let’s go. Bear, come on.”

James tried to pull away from me but he was too weak. I threw my arm around his shoulder and drew him away from the side of the road. Bear trailed along behind us as we moved into the desert.

I dragged James along until the flat land fell away and we found ourselves at the crest of a ravine. There was a narrow trail heading down into it, but it was impossible to see how far it went or if it would even support our weight. I looked around for another option and found none. I pulled a single chemical glow stick out of my pack and cracked it. Any light was risky, but taking the trail blind was sure to be suicide.

I headed down first, stepping slowly into the chem stick’s pale green glow. James came next, with Bear sniffing along behind us. Now that the shock of the crash had passed, every step sent waves of pain through my body. The bones in my wrist felt like they were grinding together. Soon, exhaustion began to nip at every muscle, settling over my thoughts like a fog. The dark of the chasm yawned beside us as the trail grew more and more narrow. We had to find someplace to rest, and fast.

It was an hour or more before I let James sink to the rocky floor and then sat down beside him, struggling to catch my breath and wishing away every stabbing pain throughout my body. When I could summon the strength to move again, I cracked another glow stick and looked around.

We were on a small shelf of rock just wide enough for the three of us. Bear sat panting, eyes shining eerily in the chemical green. The gash on his side was still sealed, but he yanked one of his front paws away with a yelp when I tried to look at it. He tucked it close to his body and licked at it.

James was beside me, bent in half over his knees, with his back to me.

“James?” He didn’t turn, so I reached for his shoulder. “Listen to me. I—”

He fell into the light and I saw that his mouth was open wide and he was gasping soundlessly, tears streaking the sides of his face. Both hands were clasped over his chest, clawing at his lungs.

I dropped the light and tore through my pack, nerves screaming as I searched through clothes and useless gear. I found the inhaler, dropped it, grabbed it again. James started to thrash in the middle of the trail, pounding at the dirt with one fist, his face streaked with panic. I pulled him to me and set the inhaler to his lips, but one hand flew up and knocked it away.

“Don’t need,” he insisted in a tortured rattle. “Don’t… need…”

“Yes, you do. Now take it before you pass out.”

I forced the inhaler into his mouth and clamped his jaw shut around it. I triggered a blast of medicine into him and then another.

I watched as he struggled, and timed the next blast for the tiny intake he could manage. With each puff from the inhaler, I felt the rigid muscles in James’s back yield. The wheeze faded and James settled into a halting, staticky breath. His arms were limp, and even in the green glow, I could see the palor of his skin and the sheen of cold sweat all over him. I dropped the inhaler and wiped the sweat from his forehead.