“We will run out of food in the middle of the winter. We have enough for everyone for a few more months but with most all this year’s harvest gone to ash we will not make it to next spring.
“Add to that fact that the Bane have become more aggressive. They’re using weapons now. We can’t go into the cities anymore. They have been pushing further and further into the country. Just today a man passed away who was on the run after his family was attacked. He came from the east. We’ve never heard of them pressing in from the mountains like that.”
Avian cleared his throat, his eyes dropping to the ground. I realized how hard this must be on him, having to be the one to finally bring this to everyone’s attention. He was strong in a way I had never realized before. He may not have been as physically tough like Bill and Graye were but he was a rock, a foundation for the rest of us.
“It has been proposed that we need to move,” his voice broke, just a tiny bit.” “I don’t think there is any other choice. The natural resources we have will not carry us to spring. We’re going to have to go someplace warmer. Southwest.
“The question is when and how to move,” Avian said as he looked around at our fellow men and women. “If we leave right now we would be crossing the deserts in the hottest time of the year. And yet if we don’t leave now our supplies will become all the more depleted. And we risk being found.
“It would be incredibly dangerous to move any way we do it. If we leave all at once it will be easier for Bane to spot us. At the same time, there is safety in numbers. We can have our best scouts with us all at once. If we move in smaller groups it will be easier to stay hidden, to keep a low profile. But each group could have no more than one or two of our most skilled scouts. It also splits all of us. There’s the risk that we might not all ever be reunited. Without electronic devices it will be difficult to stay in contact and reconvene.
“It is up to you. We won’t force any decisions on you. This affects all of us. The choice is yours.”
Everyone was silent for a long while. How was anyone supposed to make this decision? There were pros and cons to each choice. There was no clear decision to make. Each carried the possibility of destruction, with being wiped out in one big cluster or the chance we would never be a group again, a family.
“We could go in two sets,” Graye spoke up. “If we split right down the middle, one group could go in a few weeks or so when things will start to cool slightly. We could leave messages for the group to follow, traces the Bane won’t pick up on. Leave a trail for each other to the new location. The last group will bring the rest of the food. We have the two trucks, if we camouflage them well enough, we should be able to bring enough supplies. At least until we run out of fuel.”
The group was quiet for a bit, mulling over Graye’s idea.
“That seems reasonable to me,” Avian finally said. “Eve? Gabriel?”
“It seems a viable option,” I answered.
Gabriel simply nodded his head. His behavior was disturbing.
“All those in favor of Graye’s plan?” Avian asked, turning his eyes over the group.
The majority of hands, including mine, went up. After a few hesitant and thoughtful seconds, the rest of them went up as well.
“It is agreed then,” Avian said with a nod. “We will make preparations. I think until then our priority should be to hunt as much as possible and gather as many other resources as we can find. Traveling would be hard under normal circumstances, but considering the conditions we have been under these last few weeks, it will be even more difficult. We will need food to keep up our strength. Our survival has become all the more challenging.”
A flurry of mixed emotions was tangible as everyone left. I watched their faces as they did, Wix, Victoria, Morgan. Each of them had different thoughts behind their eyes, but there was one unifying one: we had to survive.
TWENTY-TWO
The beast hit the ground with a loud cry. A circle of red started forming on his neck before he was even fully down. He twitched for a few moments before the fight seeped out of him.
I slung my bow back across my shoulders and leapt down the small cliff I had been hiding on. I crouched beside the animal, checking to make sure it was fully dead. I saw my own reflection in the buck’s eye as he took his last strangled breath.
I pulled my arrow out of his neck and wiped it clean on the grass at my feet. I placed two fingers under my tongue and gave a loud whistle. Two minutes later Bill and Graye joined me. Together we started the mile journey back to Eden with the animal.
We had been hunting nonstop for the last three days. While scouting duty was as important as ever, it was now just as important to find food. We had brought back three does, a few foxes and rabbits, and now this buck. The kitchen had been busy cooking, bottling, and drying the meat, others tanning the hides.
Not only would our food supplies have to last us the few weeks until the first group left, and then another month after the second group left, it would also have to last the week, maybe two, journey into the unknown. And who knew what immediate food sources would be like once we reached where we were going.
It had been brilliant on Avian’s part to put everyone to work on making preparations to leave. With everyone so busy, there was no time for anyone to sit and worry too much about the fact that we were moving, that we would be traveling so far. Everyone had a role to play. Hands were needed to forage the woods nearby, searching for berries and edible mushrooms. Others were needed to collect water in any containers we could spare.
As I walked through Eden, after I had dropped off the buck, I caught a glimpse of Gabriel. He sat at the entrance of his tent, staring out over the rest of us. He watched as the rest of us worked. He wasn’t supervising, checking to make sure everything was done right. He was just gone. He’d checked out.
Checking to make sure no one was watching me, I poked my head inside Avian’s tent.
Sarah had not come out of the tent since before the meeting. When I pressed Avian about it he simply told me that she was not feeling well. I didn’t think he was intentionally lying to me. He was lying to himself.
“Sarah?” I said quietly through the dim light. “Sarah?”
Only silence greeted me. I stepped inside, closing the flap behind me. It felt muggy inside and it was suffocatingly hot as the sun beat down above. “Sarah?” I said again as I knelt next to her cot.
A thin sheet was gathered up around her neck, damp and clinging to her skin where it touched her. Her brown curls were matted and stuck to her face. Her skin clung to her cheekbones. Her eyes were closed. They looked like they were sinking into her head.
“Sarah,” I called again, my voice insistent. I felt the urgent need to wake her up. Now. “Sarah,” I said again as I placed my hands on her and shook her slightly.
“Eve.” The tent was suddenly flooded with light as Avian opened the flap. “Leave her alone.” He waved me out.
“She looks like death,” I whispered as I followed him out into the light. “What is happening to her?”
Avian pursed his lips together, his eyes dropped to the ground. His hand rubbed over his short hair. He did this when he felt stressed or worried.
“She’s getting worse, isn’t she?” I asked.
It took a moment before Avian nodded his head. “She’s not having as many seizures but she’s sleeping the majority of the time. She’s woken up a total of maybe two hours in the last twenty-four. She can’t keep much of anything down.
“I think she might have cancer,” he said. He sounded totally defeated. “It explains the respiratory failure, the seizures, the overall declining health. And once symptoms like this show up… It’s advanced. I don’t know what else to do for her,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Maybe if I were an actual doctor…”
“Hey,” I cut him off, giving him a sharp look. “Don’t talk like that. You’re an amazing doctor. Sometimes nature just can’t be fought.”
He nodded his head, his eyes st
ill on the ground.
“There’s West,” I said as I looked back toward the center of camp. “Come on. We’re supposed to meet again.”
Avian, West, Bill, and I all sat around the long dining table and smoothed the plans we had written out over its rough surface.
“If the scouts continue at the rate you have been going, we should gain at least a few more weeks worth of food supplies, maybe even another month,” Avian took control of the meeting again. It bothered me that he had not even asked Gabriel to join us. He knew as well as I did though that it was pointless. Gabriel was gone for the time being. “We need a few more things that we’re going to have to go look for. We need more water containers. We’ll go through what we have quickly.
“We’re also going to need a way to transport a large amount of people. The supplies we will have to haul will fill the beds of the trucks. Bill, the trailer you and Graye brought back from the city will work. I’m hoping we can fix up the old one that was rusting away by the lake. I’ve already got a few people working it. This trip will go much faster if we can ride instead of walk.
“We need a way to communicate with the second group. A way to leave signs the Bane won’t notice. Any ideas?”
No one jumped right away. “Think about it for a while, let us know if you come up with anything,” Avian said.
“The other issue. It will be invaluable if we can take the trucks with us the entire way. We’re going to have to look for gas stations, as far on the outskirts of towns we can find. We also run the risk that any fuel that will be left will have gone bad. It’s been nearly six years since any new fuel was brought in. It may very well destroy the engines.”
“We don’t exactly have any other choice though, do we,” West piped in.
“Exactly,” Avian said as he looked up at West. “Bill has maps, we’ll carefully plan our route, try to avoid any Bane, any big city areas.”
With this, Bill reached into his pack and pulled out a book that must have weighed a good ten pounds. He flipped it open somewhere near the middle and started scanning through pages.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, my eyes growing wide. Maps weren’t common.
“Got it from a man who didn’t need it anymore,” he said, not looking up from the map.
“This is where we’re at,” Bill said as he pointed to a place on the map. I recognized the shape of the lake, the terrain of the mountains. “This is the closest city,” he dragged his finger over the page. “We should find somewhere to get fuel on the outskirts here. It’s a small city so there is a chance there won’t even be any Bane. They tend to flock to the larger ones. We could get out of there scot-free.”
“What about the groups?” I asked as I looked up at the faces around me. “Who is going to go when?”
Avian didn’t answer right away as he took all of us in, gauging the abilities of each individual. “Obviously you have to go in the first group, just in case we run into any problems with Bane.” I nodded in agreement. “I’m also going with the first group.”
“What about the rest of them?” I immediately protested. “What if they need you?”
“And what if the first group needs me?” he said as he looked at me sharply. “I can’t clone myself, Eve. I can’t be in both places. I’ll ask for a volunteer and train them in every way I can before we go. There’s no other choice. I think it’s clear that the first group will be in the most danger. That’s where I feel I need to be.”
“If Eve is going with the first group, it would probably be best if Graye and I went with the second group, to even things out,” Bill said. “Gabriel can also go with us, since you two are going with the first group.”
“That’s a good idea,” Avian nodded in agreement. “I suppose you can pick which group you want to go with,” he said to West, his jaw suddenly tightening up.
“I’m going in the first group,” he said without any hesitation. His eyes flicked up to mine.
“Fine,” Avian said. “We’ll let the rest of Eden decide when they want to go, with some monitoring to make sure things are even.”
We disbanded with plans to scout for water containers and a time later that evening to meet with everyone in Eden to layout the plans. Then it occurred to me: if Avian was going with the first group, Sarah would have to come with us as well. From what I had just seen, I couldn’t imagine any way she would be able to move. I didn’t think she would even be able to walk out of her own tent, much less survive the thousand miles or more that were ahead of us.
Groups were chosen. Avian and Bill had monitored and made sure things would be even, that there was no one group that would be bigger than the other, that one group would not be left without someone to make sure everyone stayed fed or protected.
Something settled over Eden as our futures were laid out before us. Things were becoming more real every day. We were going to have to leave the place we had all called home. This had been our safe haven, the place we had fled the world to. And now we were leaving it behind.
The next morning, birds chirped annoyingly loud as I padded silently through the undergrowth. They were complaining about the heat as well. My eyes watched the lay of the land, recalling certain trees and rocks.
I stepped away from the trees toward the cabin. After watching the area for a moment to make sure it was clear, I walked inside.
The groan of floorboards sounded from one of the back rooms and I quickly crouched behind the dusty couch, my handgun held firmly in my clammy hands. As I heard steps approaching, I poked my head out. My eyes met a pair of worn brown boots.
“What are you doing here?” I said as I stood. The barrel of West’s shotgun was immediately pointed at my chest.
“Geez, Eve!” he snapped as he jumped. He immediately lowered the gun. “I could have shot you! I don’t think even you could recover from a blow like that.”
“Probably not,” I mused, my eyes scanning my surroundings again. “How do you know about this place?”
“I scouted it out, same as you,” he said as he headed back to the other room. “I’m assuming this is the house where you found all the food?”
“Um hum,” I mumbled as I followed him. The room held two large white boxes that were hard sided and nearly as large as me. It also contained a sink, a few cupboards, and a small counter space. West opened the cupboards and my eyes grew wide as I recognized the round white bottles he started pulling out.
“Bleach.” I breathed. “I didn’t see it when I was here last. And look at those, they’ll be perfect for storing water,” I said as I spotted some empty plastic containers on the top shelf.
“Here,” West said as he pulled a length of rope out of his pack. “Tie them on for me.”
The containers secured to West’s pack, we searched the rest of the house for more but didn’t find anything useful. We headed outside and started pacing the perimeter.
“Look at these,” I said as four blue barrels that were nearly the same size as me came into view.
“Catchment containers,” West said, his voice hitching up a notch in excitement. “See that pipe that leads into the top of this one?” he said as his finger traced the line that ran along the roof line and dropped into the first barrel. “These connect them. It’s set up as a big containment unit but they would work individually. They’d hold probably 200 gallons between all of them.”
“They’re nearly empty,” I said as I knocked on the side of one. “We could each take one back with us tonight, bring the rest tomorrow. It’s nearly time to head back anyway.”
We got the catchment system unhooked and drained the rest of the water out of them.
Maneuvering the barrels through the woods wasn’t easy but it was worth every push. This was exactly what we needed to survive the heat of the desert.
The silence hung heavy over us as we moved, discomfort growing by the minute. I felt like I had two people inside regarding West. One part of me was constantly infuriated at the way he reacted to everything, the
things he said, the way he looked at me. The other half wanted me to constantly move closer, to let him wake up the all too human side of me. Right then I wasn’t sure which Eve I was.
West finally broke the silence. “Did you really mean it when you said that you couldn’t be around me?”
I instantly wished for the silence back.
“Yes,” I answered simply as I maneuvered my barrel around a boulder.
West stopped short in front of me, making me stop as well. He looked back at me, his eyes hard to read. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You have no idea what you want, do you?”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “The only thing I want is to survive, to have Eden survive.”
“No, Eve,” he said as his eyes hardened as he shook his head once. “That’s not the only thing you want and you don’t even know it. You don’t think that I don’t see what is happening to you? I know you feel something when we’re together, that you crave more of it. If you didn’t it wouldn’t keep happening. But then there’s Avian. When you are around him, you’re different. You’re…yourself. You can’t stay away from him, unlike me, even when you’re furious with him.
“You want us both,” he said more quietly. “But you also need to realize that you can’t have both.”
“I know that,” I whispered as I looked away from West and started pushing my barrel again.
TWENTY-THREE
Everyone was ecstatic when we brought the barrels back and I sensed a small feeling of pride that I was part of the team that had located them. I found myself seeking Avian out to report the good news.
I heard his voice floating out from the open aired medical tent. Another voice joined his and they burst into a chorus of laughter. I slowed my approach, stepping behind a tent to conceal myself.
Avian stood next to Victoria, pointing to something in a book. He looked up at her and I watched as his eyes trailed over her red curls. I saw the light that danced in his eyes. His shoulder brushed against hers as he reached across the table for a gauze wrap. She held out her hand as he demonstrated his technique for stopping blood flow.