August Ansel - Shadow Road

Handy, sitting at Arie’s right, made a move to go to her. Arie touched his arm.

“Give her a minute,” she whispered.

He watched Renna’s swaddled back, small lines of concern etched between his brows.

“She’s sitting with a tough sorrow,” said Arie. “Let her do that.”

He lowered himself back onto the bench, turning away from the fire, and Renna, with obvious deliberation.

Curran was still poring over the cramped handwriting. He closed the journal, resting one large hand on its cover. With the other he roughly massaged his eyes. “Jesus,” he sighed.

“Give us the short version,” said Arie.

He stopped rubbing at his face. When he looked up, his expression—all weariness and misery—made Arie wince. He leaned back and looked at the stairs, perhaps thinking about the boy asleep up there or wishing for Talus’s comfortable warmth against his leg. The dog had rarely left Kory’s side since they’d gotten to the cabin.

“There are only a few short entries at the end,” he said. “Stuff he scribbled down not long after the helicopters flew over. That was early morning, and later that night he wrote about his wife getting sick.” He looked at Arie and Handy. “It’s awful. He tried to keep the kid busy so he wouldn’t see the worst of it.”

Arie shook her head. “He might just as well have spit in the ocean,” she said. “Everything came down on the little fellow anyway.”

Renna began to rock gently and her shadow moved back and forth on the cabin wall, blurry and large in the firelight.

“His last entry is short. It was—” He flipped open the journal again, gingerly, as if not wanting to touch it any more than necessary. “Yeah, two days after his wife died. He was feeling sick by then and figured he’d try hiking out to their friends’ place.”

“Hoping for help,” said Handy.

Some of Curran’s sorrow leached into Arie’s bosom. “Hoping against hope,” she said. What desperation Tom Wallace must have faced, to leave his little boy alone, to go out into the woods when he was already ill. He must have known he’d not be back.

“What did he think the helicopters were?” asked Handy.

“He didn’t see the first one,” said Curran. “It was real early in the morning. They were inside when it came. But when he heard the second one coming, he and—what’s her name?”

“Jaimee,” Handy said.

“They ran outside. It was a big old Coast Guard unit, flying low. They’re huge, you know?”

“Yes,” said Arie. “In the time before, when they’d fly over the house doing drills or rescues, you could really feel that vibration.”

“Easy to hear it coming. The whole family runs outside, and when it flies over the clearing it’s dropping something.”

Renna’s shadow on the wall halted. Arie and Handy watched Curran steadily. He took a breath. “He said it looked like a steady stream of powder pouring out of the big starboard door, flying off the rotor flow like white smoke.”

“They used to drop that orange fire retardant during wild fires,” said Renna, her voice reflective. She pulled the quilt more snugly around her.

“Right, but that stuff was one big dump on a hot spot, then another dump somewhere else. This was…” He paused, tapping a finger on the journal entry. “More like crop dusting, I guess.”

Handy leaned against the cabin wall, tugging gently at his beard. “Did all three helicopters do it?”

“He only saw the second one. Once they saw it pouring that cloud of crap, they stayed inside.”

Arie thought back on the day her neighbor’s baby had died under her hands on the front lawn. “We didn’t see anything like this,” she said. “If the helicopters were spreading something that made people sick, they would have needed a lot of them to cover the populated places.” She looked at her brother. “Did you all see helicopters flying over the Land?”

He shook his head decisively. “No. We hardly ever saw a plane out there. I sure don’t remember seeing a helicopter—not once.”

Renna started rocking again. “What does it matter now?” she said. “Do you still care, really? It happened. A bunch of people died, but I’m alive.” The runners of the chair creaked over the wide floorboards. “I got trapped by a bunch of crazy assholes for a while, but I got away. I’m still here. Right, Curran? I’m here. You’re here. That’s what I care about now.” Her voice was determinedly cheery. “I’m warm and dry and I ate so much dinner I’m still full. Good enough.”

“How do we know whether there’s still a threat if we don’t know where the threat came from in the first place?” Curran asked.

“Threat? Haven’t we seen the threat already? It looked a lot like people with fire bombs and a little god complex.”

Curran picked up the journal and slapped the table with a sudden loud whack . “I’m talking about the Pink, Renna. The freaking disease, okay?” His voice was raised then, and Talus appeared at the top of the stairs, peering down at them. “Maybe you’re fine with it,” he said, “but I’d still like to find out how it is that pretty much everybody I know fell over dead within a couple of days.”

“It was two years ago,” said Renna. “If someone has a phase two in mind, they sure are taking their time.”

“Oh stop,” said Arie, clearly disgusted. “What we need to know—the only thing that really matters to me right now—is what Kory went through in the end. Renna’s right about the roots of the illness. It’s a mystery we’re not likely to solve.”

She rose from the table with a small groan. Stiff from hiking all over the property during that long day, she crossed the room and stood by the fire, ignoring the heat on her burned shoulders so that she could grind her knuckles into the small of her back. From that vantage point she was facing Renna, could see her face rocking in and out of shadow, looking relaxed. A little smug.

On Renna’s next rock forward, Arie took a single huge step and jammed her boot down on the point of the runner. Renna pitched forward and had to scrabble for the arm of the chair to keep from falling right out onto the rug. She got to her feet and flung the quilt across the room onto the sofa, furious disbelief etched on her face.

Arie returned to her place by the hearth without missing a beat. “You’re sadly mistaken if you think a full belly and a warm bed are the measure of your safety and satisfaction,” she said. “That’s bullshit. All we have here is a glorified way station. You want to believe you’ve stumbled onto a haven, but you might just as well be a fly humming around a pitcher plant.”

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am, old woman.”

There was something in her voice that brought Curran and Handy to their feet. Talus came bounding downstairs. Curran held out a hand for her, but the dog planted herself dead center between Arie and Renna, ears alert and tail sweeping the rug in a slow arc.

“Stupid?” Arie laughed. “There’s a universe of difference between stupid and untried. You aren’t a scrap of the former, woman, but you’re a whole lot of the latter. And I’d say the same of Curran. Hell,” she said, and struck her own chest with one palm. “I’ll say it about myself.” She looked down at Talus and smiled. “Look at you,” she said. “Here to keep the peace, eh? What a good idea.”

Renna stood where she was for a moment, stiff and silent. Talus jumped up and nudged her big head into Renna’s hand, giving it a swipe of her tongue for good measure. Renna heaved a sigh and rubbed behind Talus’s ears. “You can’t call me untried, Arie,” she said. There was still a stilted edge in her voice, though not the anger that had brought Curran and Handy out of their seats. “I’ve been tried. I’ve been tried and sampled and put to use. I cut a man’s throat to stop it, didn’t I?”