August Ansel - Shadow Road

Instead, he opened his eyes to the quiet world and everything left in the wake of the pink plague. Outside the tent, the scrape of a match. It was Doyle, awake first to light the stove. Russell sat up and ran his hands over his face, rubbing away the last vestige of sleep. His fingers played lightly over the ridges of twisted scar around his eye, his ruined nose, his ragged mouth—the changed face of a new avatar: Russell, the bloodied and vengeful.

Nebulous morning twilight had turned the walls of his nylon tent from black to gray-green. He reached into the foot of the down sleeping bag and pulled out his parka, warm from the heat of his body all night. A long indigo scarf shot through with silver threads, had served as a pillow for a few hours. Wrapping his head and face took seconds now. Only when that was done did he emerge from his solo tent, zipping his jacket against the cold morning.

In the center of their tight camp, Doyle had water simmering. The little stove—a brilliant orange gizmo they’d scavenged from the fatly stocked underground bunker of a corpulent fellow who’d died in a Kevlar vest with his boots laced tight and a cold cigar clenched in his fist—burned wood instead of propane. In addition to producing a hot, smokeless fire, the stove produced voltage. It wasn’t much and it didn’t last long, but it was by-god, hooray-for-Tesla electricity with enough juice to charge a pair of tiny matching headlamps. Someday soon its batteries would spit their last and its small fan would fail, but until that happened it was a little magic act every morning and evening. Without asking, Doyle poured hot water into a filter cone of ground coffee and passed the metal cup to Russell.

He watched the water sink through, how the oils in the coffee left a slight rainbow sheen on the black surface of the grounds, and lowered his face into the fragrant steam. One more terminal treasure to be hoarded and savored. No more coffee beans shipped into temperate climates. No more oranges, avocados, or bananas, either. They sure as hell couldn’t grow that stuff, not forty-odd degrees north of the equator. Sometimes at night, waiting in vain for sleep, he entertained fantasies of sending out a small expedition. His own Leif Erikson. His own Lewis and Clark. His own Marco Polo sent south in search of coffee beans: See you in a few years, boys, and don’t come back without the Arabica . He handed the cone to Doyle, who made himself a cup. Last man to roll out got the weakest hint of brown water to start the day and was happy to have it.

Russell turned away, pulling the scarf aside to drink the scalding brew. He’d taught himself the trick of using a cup without spilling things through the tattered remains of his upper lip, but didn’t care to have an audience for the effort. “Get them up,” he said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

Doyle stood, took a few long swallows of his own cup, and set the last of it carefully next to the stove. There were two other tents, small and lightweight things huddled low to the ground. He gave the nearest one a swift kick, his big boot making contact with someone inside.

“Ow! Yeah, fuck. I’m up,” came a muttered voice. The sides of the tent bulged like a spider sac as the two men inside scrambled out of their bags. Doyle was just lifting his foot to the second tent when the zipper shot open. Young Alex staggered out, hair standing away from his head in wild, carroty-red tufts. “We’re up, too,” he said, hopping on one foot to get his pants on. He finally managed it, and beelined for the coffee dripper.

Russell stood silently, caffeine zinging through him, waiting for them to sip and stomp and groan themselves into another cold, wet morning. When they seemed more or less conscious, he motioned them close, Doyle standing slightly behind him, ready to take whatever action might be needed. The men leaned in, heads cocked slightly forward to catch his instructions. It didn’t do to ask Russell to repeat himself.

“We’re close,” he said. “By my reckoning, a day or two behind.” He drained his cup and handed it to Doyle. “I want to hear your thoughts.”

They stood silently, not daring to look at each other, waiting for someone else to speak. The morning grew fractionally lighter, and the details of the surrounding trees began to appear—branch, bark, leaf. Russell continued to say nothing, his eyes moving from man to man, daring them to find their balls.

Their search effort had gone from quick and promising to shit-miserable almost a week ago. At first, they’d been lucky. With promises of extra rations and threats of violent reprisals for escape attempts, nearly all their able-bodied citizens had been put into manageable search parties. In just four days of methodical bushwhacking, Curran’s stump house was discovered back in the woods. That day, the exit-trail of the old woman’s crew was excellent; despite obvious efforts at obfuscation, they were in a hurry and they were carrying someone. But when the weather shifted, their signs of passage eventually turned to slop underfoot. Sounds were muffled and confused by the rain. Being out in that chill mess, Russell knew, also raised a risk of rebellion. This was a group hand-curated from the Council, but genuine loyalty was thin—always and everywhere. He’d had a distinct sense last night that the wheels of mutiny were beginning their slow grind. Undergirding a sense of common purpose was now mission critical.

“How do you know, Chief?” said Alex. “That we’re close, I mean? The day after we found the big house was the last time we saw any decent marks.”

“That was a strong find, though,” said Garrett. He was a muscular, observant kid who tended to avoid pissing contests. “At least we got a fix on their direction.” A fifth generation dairy farmer, Garrett had one day blundered into the high school on his own hook, hiking into town after finding his father slumped over a barbed-wire fence—pink as a posy and dead as dirt. “It was for sure they started out heading north-northeast.”

“A fix on their direction that day,” Alex argued. “Maybe they just headed that way to throw us off. Instead of north, they might try to cut straight east, up and over the ridge.”

Doyle reached out whip-quick and popped Alex upside the back of his head. His wild hair fell in his face. He didn’t dare to look around, just pulled into himself, hands tucked in his armpits, jaw muscles bulging and contracting.

“We’ve had that discussion, Alex. Haven’t we?” said Russell.

“It’s too steep for them to strike east, anyway,” said Garrett. “Not with the old woman.”

“Steep is only the half of it.” This from the fifth man, a stocky, dark-haired thud called Gilch. Russell had Doyle pull him onto the final search team for two reasons: out in the trees he was quiet as a cat, and he was utterly biddable in his brutality. He hawked a wad of phlegm onto the ground near Alex’s right foot. “And I told you this last time, dumb ass.”

Alex stiffened and drew a breath to retort. Doyle gave him a brittle sideways glance, and he held his peace.

“They could maybe handle the elevation and the pitch of the trail,” Gilch continued. “Even the old woman could hack it, if they didn’t try to go too fast. But the terrain turns to shit up there. If it gets any colder, it’ll start spitting snow before they make the first crest. Besides,” he said, pinching the point of his short beard between thumb and forefinger. “Say they do crest the ridge. What the fuck are they going to find on the other side? Trees and more trees, wet and more wet. And all they have is what little they could grab when they went on the run. You think they’re going to hoof it into the Trinity Alps? Maybe hide out around Mount Shasta so they can sneak into Redding for supplies?”