“He’s an opportunist,” agreed Arie. “A wretched one, but an opportunist, nevertheless, and lazy.”
A huge phalanx of Canada geese arrowed over their heads, pointed north like the world’s own compass, honking as they flew.
“They sound like a giant herd of puppies,” said Renna. Tipped up to the clear morning, her expression was as relaxed as Arie could ever recall seeing it. Kory, who’d been exceptionally self-contained all morning, stared after the enormous flock, one arm slung about Talus’s neck.
Handy, who’d paced a slow perimeter while they stopped, dusted his hands on his pants. “Everyone ready?”
They kept the scabrous coastal highway on their left and the mountainous inland forest on their right. The boggy fields between, once wrangled by dairy farmers into rich grazing land, were now a broad riparian conduit running north and south. The Mad River meandered diagonally through its center, slate gray under the November sky.
During the first few days of the collapse, Arie had traversed her neighborhood for blocks in every direction, looking door-to-door for other survivors. But scavengers arrived early, forcing her retreat. Forays out to trap and fish were few and far between, and the attic was soon the center of her universe.
Now, out in the open, even with the overgrown fields, it felt to Arie as though they were crossing a lit stage. At the rear of their small procession, she studied the others, looking for clues. Did they feel vulnerable, too? She couldn’t be sure. How odd it was that, two years in, the only one of them who’d been truly exposed to this broken world was Handy. Her youngest brother, with his guileless face and taciturn manner—a man whose early life experience was abridged in so many ways—understood better than any of them what the road might bring.
He was on high alert, walking in point position and wishing he had eyes in the back of his head. So far that morning, he’d seen nothing that concerned him, no more than two or three abandoned cars out on the highway and no one else on foot. That was a relief, but it wouldn’t last. Tonight they could find a place out here to shelter and sleep, but tomorrow would be a different story.
They were closing in, slowly but surely, on the next town. Every step brought them marginally closer. Small roadside signs began to appear at wide intervals, their enticing primary colors now faded, smirched with bird shit and mildew: Redwood Hot Tubs & Sauna! Lotus Blossom Cafe! Green Machine Laundromat!
He did another quick 360-degree scan. Turning front, his eyes lingered on Renna, walking nearly abreast of him but several yards to his right. She wore a deep-green raincoat that had belonged to Kory’s mother. Her dark curls framed her face and tumbled down her back, and he was struck by her look of genuine happiness. Although she was using the walking stick he’d made her, her limp was virtually undetectable.
Back at the Wallace cabin, Renna had been so deeply resistant to leaving, Handy feared she might refuse to go when the time came. She’d erected a wall around herself, leaving him with a hollow ache of missing her even when they were lying together in the same bed. Yet, here she was, chin up and forging along, the apples of her cheeks bright in the cold afternoon.
He pulled his attention forward and let himself imagine they were back on family land, all safe together, the vagaries of this passage behind them. How he longed to spare them the threats and troubles they’d confront between here and there.
Jaimee Wallace’s green raincoat was a perfect fit, and Renna relished its quilted flannel lining, especially inside the pockets. She and Arie had found plenty of sound, serviceable clothing in the dead woman’s closet, and Renna sent her silent thanks again and again for all she’d left behind. For all of them. For the boy.
The day seemed to be rolling toward her on a current of memory. For the first time since the known world had disintegrated, she felt connected to her past, to the Renna of before. That Renna really had gotten up each morning, drunk a glass of orange juice, put on a little makeup (and how peculiar it was now to remember that face-painting ritual), and scrolled through social media before leaving for work. That was ME, she thought. I did those things.
This place was bringing it back—this very stretch of former farmland and the way it looked: north, south, east, west. Even with the pasture having grown to wild abandon. With the crumbling highway, broken and sprouting its own vegetation in the rifts. With the river swollen to twice its former size and teeming with fundamental life.
She and her sister Bridget had cycled this stretch of Highway 101 scores of times, first with their parents and then by themselves. The waterfront trail between Eureka and Arcata was familiar to her on a cellular level. A soul level. The long curve around the edge of the bay. That stretch of towering eucalyptus trees, planted eons ago as a windbreak. The exposed remnants of a lumber mill that had shuttered and eventually sunk halfway below sea level, long before Renna was born.
It was hers. All of it.
It seemed impossible that only a few days ago, while sorting clothing, foodstuffs, and portable gadgets, Renna had spun an elaborate daydream of sneaking away in the wee hours, returning to a roof and four walls that sheltered only her. A table shared by no one.
An empty bed.
The plague had slammed doors. From day one, she’d been snagged. Caught at the high school and made to act as the Konungar’s plaything. A terrified footrace through Eureka’s empty streets and back alleys until she was nearly killed by a wild dog. Arie’s attic. The rock cave. The small cabin deep in the trees. Everything had constricted around her until finally it was her essential self that began to attenuate. She’d become tiny, a flea behind a barricade.
Curran had been snagged by Russell and his goons, too, and made to do terrible things. But he didn’t shrink. In fact, it sometimes seemed to Renna as if Curran were the counterbalance that kept their little family’s emotional scale from tipping too far. Right now she could hear him humming something jaunty, almost under his breath.
I’m a chump, she thought. Arie’s catechism riffed through her head: I sojourn. My life is my own.
And it was out here, all along.
He was still carrying the rifle. Its stock was solid wood and the weight would have made foot travel a struggle for the boy. Kory seemed relieved to put the gun in someone else’s charge, and none of the other adults had experience with firearms. Not yet.
Handy’s frequent perimeter checks had honed Curran’s own sense of watchfulness. Every twenty paces or so he’d throw a glance back. As usual, though, he trusted Talus’s internal barometer, and when the dog was relaxed, so was Curran.
She was sticking close to Kory today, even more than usual. Normally the boy was chatty and inquisitive, but all day he had been watchful, self-contained. Talus must have sensed it, too. Instead of roaming ahead and circling behind as she typically did, she paced Kory, glancing back at Curran from time to time. The reality of leaving his only home was likely beginning to hit. When they stopped for the night, Curran would try to get him talking.
As for himself? It was good to be on the move, finally. If he could sprout wings, he’d get himself up there with the Canada geese and push for the border.
Everyone had a piece of his parents’ clothes. He’d seen them wearing these things before today, but never all at the same time. Handy was walking in Papa’s boots. Papa’s work gloves kept surprising him on Curran’s hands. Arie wore Mama’s big knitted scarf wrapped around her head and neck. And in the green coat, Renna looked so much like Mama from behind that Kory kept having to look away to remind himself it couldn’t be her. It was strange, and he couldn’t decide if it made him feel better or worse.