After the End (4 page)
I JUMP BACK FROM THE DOOR AS DAD COMES stomping out of his office. “Son, were you waiting to see me?” he asks distractedly.
“Nope, just dropping off the mail,” I say, and hold up a couple of envelopes as proof.
“I’m leaving in a few hours for that weekend conference in Denver that I couldn’t get out of,” he says, already walking away. “And after that, there’s some business elsewhere I have to take care of, so I’m not sure when I’ll be back. But I’ll be checking in with you, and I asked Mrs. Kirby to stay at the house.”
“But, Dad!” I protest. “I’m eighteen freaking years old. I don’t need a babysitter.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel about eight.
Dad turns and gives me the eye. “It is precisely because you are eighteen years old that you need a chaperone. I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment. I don’t need you getting into any more trouble.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say, but he’s already gone.
WE SPEND THE NIGHT ON THE TOP OF THE RIDGE, watching, waiting. I want to understand this city before I set foot in it. The sleeping dogs heat the tent with their warm breath, and I lay half-in, half-out with the tent flaps tucked in around me to keep in the warmth. I am not cold. There is a flame burning inside me since my clan disappeared, and this new mystery has made it burn hotter.
I chew on a piece of venison jerky as I watch the city. Near the waterfront a forest of tall buildings crowd together, growing sparser and shorter as they spread outward from the city center. On the edges of the town are groups of houses dotted with small parks and supply centers. I try to remember what they’re called . . .
shops
.
During the few hours before dusk, a number of cars leave the city and head toward the outskirts. I watch as some drive directly to the houses and others stop first at the shops. The people—tiny as ants from my vantage point—emerge with rolling metal carts full of supplies, pile them into the cars and, once home, transfer them into the houses.
My mind struggles with what my eyes are seeing. People—regular people—are going to work and then coming home to their families. Children play happily in front of their houses, bundled in brightly colored snowsuits. There seems to be plentiful fuel (I count at least ten gas stations), and supplies appear to be abundant.
I try to push my emotions aside—confusion, shock, fear—and use every ounce of rationale I possess. I cannot let myself panic. If I can’t keep a cool head, I might not be able to find my people. And the thought of being alone in the world is one that I’ve had to repeatedly dismiss. The idea is too frightening to consider. I have to remain focused on my goal: finding Whit. Then—together—we will find our clan.
Too many questions are darting through my head. How can this one city have escaped the nuclear catastrophe of World War III? Could it have completely rebuilt itself in three short decades? And if this city survived, did others, too? I watch boats enter and leave the port. They have to be going somewhere.
What I’m seeing is an impossibility: a thriving metropolitan civilization only three days away from our village. I pull my fire opal from my neck and hold it in my palm against the ground. Still no connection with my father. And the wind is giving me nothing at all.
I push away a rising sense of alarm. I’ve never been far from my father—my clan—for more than a day or two on the odd camping trip with my friends. And those times, I enjoyed the solitude, knowing everyone was safe and sound in their yurts. Unlike now. I breathe deeply and try to shed the alarming thoughts crowding in on me.
I change my focus to Whit. I imagine that face I know as well as my father’s, and the Yara shows me his emotions. Fear. Confusion. If I can’t feel my father and I can feel Whit, maybe it means he’s still nearby.
Although the tiny people below don’t look threatening, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I’d rather watch them like I do my prey when hunting. Observe their patterns. Understand them before making a move. I don’t dare light a fire here on the ridge, else I would use the firepowder to ask the Yara where Whit is. I must wait until tomorrow to use a less conspicuous way of Reading his location.
I scoot back into the tent, securing the flaps tightly behind me, and settle between my layers of furs, listening to the sound of the huskies’ sleeping puffs and the alien sound of civilization in the distance.
The sun has just risen. The city sleeps. I have hidden the sled and bulkier supplies on the outskirts of the city, taking only one large rucksack that I carry strapped across my back. Beckett and Neruda walk protectively on either side of me as we cross through the outlying housing areas.
As we approach the city center, more and more shops appear until we are walking along a broad road lined with businesses on either side. I hear a noise and freeze as a car approaches us from behind. The dogs’ fur bristles and they nudge in closer to me as a man steps out of the car and walks up to one of the shop doors. He takes something out of his pocket and begins wiggling it in the door handle.
Opening the door, he stomps the snow off his boots, glancing briefly up and down the street before stepping inside. Catching sight of me, he smiles politely, nods his head, and calls, “Morning!” And then he disappears into the shop. I remain frozen for another ten seconds, and when he doesn’t come back out with a loaded gun or other deadly weapon, I breathe out my relief in a cloud of warm air.
In my seventeen years I have known only forty-six people. The same people, every day, each of whom I know everything about. And I just saw a man who I will never speak to and will never know. I walk past the shop and see him inside bustling around and—poof—I continue walking and he no longer exists to me. I can hear Dennis teasingly chiding me in school. “Juneau, give us all a break and save the existentialism for our philosophy discussion group.”
A few minutes later, a woman with white hair steps out of a doorway, and once again I am petrified with alarm. Her face is wrinkled, and although I’ve seen pictures of old people before, this is the first time I’ve witnessed one with my own eyes. I feel like I’m looking at an alien—someone from a world away. My spine tingles with the newness of the experience.
She turns and catches my gaze but, after casting a curious glance at me and the dogs, ignores us as she goes along her way. I spy a fenced-off area of grass and trees, make a beeline for it, and take refuge on a bench. I sit there with the dogs as the city comes alive. Until I can watch people come and go without my heart racing.
A man sits down on a bench across from me, sets down a steaming white cup next to him, and pulls out a newspaper. I tell the dogs to stay, and I walk over. He looks at me, and his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I can tell I look odd to him. No one else I’ve seen is dressed in furs and skins. “Can I help you?” he asks.
“Where are we?”
He looks around us and back at me. “In a park,” he says, shrugging.
“I know we’re in a park,” I say, “but what city is this?”
“Anchorage,” he responds. He narrows his eyes like he thinks it’s a trick question, and then his expression changes to concern. “Are you lost?” he asks.
“No,” I say, and whistle for the dogs, who flank me in seconds flat. We begin to leave the park, but I hesitate. When I turn back around, I see the man is still watching me, and I have to ask.
“Tell me—how did this city escape the war?”
“What war?” he asks, intrigued.
“World War III. The Last War. The War of 1984,” I reply, identifying it in every way I know.
He opens his mouth and out spill the words that, since last night, I have suspected were true. “There hasn’t been a World War III,” he says, “knock on wood,” and he raps his knuckle against the park bench.
I feel a wave of nausea wash over me. I have to sit down. My face and palms feel clammy, and I think I’m going to throw up. I return to my park bench and put my head between my knees until the nausea passes. I see the man leave, throwing a worried look my way before pushing through the metal gate and disappearing. I try to reason through what he told me.
There was no war. I still can’t believe we were so close to this city, yet we knew nothing. How could my father and the other elders have been so mistaken?
There’s no way they could know what happened, I realize. They’ve been isolating themselves for thirty years.
I push these thoughts aside. I have to find my clan. Even if their kidnappers aren’t brigands, they took my people and killed our animals. And I still have to find Whit. I need a clear sign to know what to do.
And suddenly the right person comes along. Someone whose thoughts are free of the restrictions of reality. Whose mind is open enough to access the collective unconscious shared by all humans past, present, and future.
She is an old woman dressed in a coat of rags. She pushes her way through the iron gate, dragging behind her a metal cart piled high with strange objects: old shoes, stacks of paper, aluminum cans laced on a string that clatter as they drag behind her.
She crosses the park and, seeing me, approaches. Beckett and Neruda glue themselves to either leg but don’t growl. She stops at the other end of my bench and slowly lowers herself to sit. Stowing her cart next to her, she pats it lovingly, like it is a baby in a carriage instead of a mountain of garbage. Then, turning, she looks vaguely in my direction. Her expression is glazed-over. Opaque.
“The men—they put a movie camera inside my television and watched everything I did,” she says matter-of-factly. “They even put a camera in my shower.”
I ignore her disheveled appearance and paranoid speech and see her for what she is. A gift from the Yara. “Can I hold your hand?” I ask. She hesitates, and suspicion flashes across her face. Leaning forward, she holds my gaze in hers. Then, finding what she is looking for, she gives a satisfied nod and pulls her right glove off. Removing my mittens, I take her gnarled, chapped hand in my own and hold my opal in the other.
“Thank you,” I say, “for being my connection to the Yara. I need to ask you some questions. Very important questions. Are you willing to answer them for me?”
“Of course, dear.” The woman’s eyes begin to look more focused, and a serene expression settles upon her face.
“I am looking for a friend. His name is Whittier Graves. I am picturing him in my mind right now. Can you see him?”
The old lady closes her eyes abruptly and then, opening them slowly, focuses on a spot in midair to the left of my head. “I see your friend,” she says.
“Where is he?”
“He is on a boat. Leaving our harbor.” She lifts her free hand and gives a distracted wave toward the invisible boat floating over my shoulder.
“What!” I exclaim, and then quickly control my emotions before I pass the shock on to my oracle. “When did he get on the boat?” I ask, my heart pounding painfully, but my voice as steady as I can manage.
“Moments ago.”
“Was he alone?” I ask, my already-cold face turning numb with fear.
“No, he was with a group of big men. Bad men. Two went with him and the others stayed.”
I fight to stay calm. “Do you know where his boat is going?” I ask. This is asking a lot of the woman. Using her to see the present and recent past is well within the bounds of realistic expectations. But from the oracle-reading exercises that Whit used to practice with me, I know this question verges on divination. The woman has to see into the future or even tap into Whit’s subconscious to give me an answer. The response I get will be cryptic at best. I focus on her, ready to catch every vital word.
The woman’s face crinkles in concentration. “Say it another way,” she responds after a few seconds.
I consider that, and finally ask, “Where must I go to find Whit and my clan?”
“You must go to your source,” she answers immediately.
“My source?” I ask, confused. “Denali?”
“No.” She shakes her head, frustrated by my incomprehension. “No, before that.”
“But I was born in Denali,” I respond.
Her frown deepens. “Aren’t you listening? You have to take a boat.” She is getting upset, and I know that her link with the Yara is fading if not already gone. I have so many questions I still want to ask. I flail around for the most important.
“Can you see my father? Do you know if he’s okay?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she says stubbornly, and tugs back the hand I am holding.
Disappointed, I take her glove and fit it carefully back over her fingers. She has returned to the mad world in her mind. She blinks, as if surprised, and I clasp her gloved hand until she is oriented.
“Thank you for your help,” I say, standing. The dogs are at my side in a flash.
“They’re watching me. They know everything I’m thinking,” the lady says.
“Tell them to go away, and maybe they’ll leave you alone,” I respond.
“Now that’s an idea,” she says, her lips forming a surprised smile. Her smile broadens as her mind recedes into some pleasant memory, so that when the dogs and I leave her, she looks almost happy.
IT LIES THERE ON HIS DESK LIKE AN INVITATION: The notepad with my dad’s writing:
The girl is the key. No drug without her. Possibly still in Alaska, but coming by boat to the continent. Around 17. Shortish: 5’5”. Long black hair. Two huskies. Gold starburst in one eye.
What’s a gold starburst?
I wonder.
I push the notebook back to where it was when I found it. And then I get the hell out of there before Dad comes back.
IF I HAVE TO TAKE A BOAT, I WILL NEED MONEY. Currency. “The root of all evil,” Dennis called it in our history class. He claimed that it was the cause of World War III. That capitalism and greed set the whole thing off, beginning with a war over oil and ending with the destruction of the environment. Although he was wrong about the war, everything I have read and heard about the world confirmed that money has always caused corruption. Now I have to find some money of my own. Just the thought of it makes me feel compromised.
I consider stowing away on a boat for about a second, like a character in one of our books. Then I realize that’s way too eighteenth century. What am I going to do—hide in an empty ale keg? No, there’s no way around it. I’m going to have to buy a ticket. I saw something on the way into town that may prove useful: a sign in a shop window.
I have to turn toward the harbor to remember which direction to go in. The buildings are confusing me. If I were standing in the middle of a mountain field, I could find my way. But with glass buildings reflecting one another every way I turn, I have to concentrate. I glance at the sun and then the water, and head north-northwest.
In ten minutes we are there.
CA$H FOR GOLD
, the sign reads. The window display holds a treasure trove of fragile-looking rings and necklaces. I swallow my fear and stare at the door for a moment. There is no handle. But there is a small sign on one side that reads
PUSH
. I push, and with a whoosh of warm air, the dogs and I are inside the building and blinking in the artificial light.
“How can you help me?” comes a voice from the far side of the room. I blink again, and then focus on a small man standing behind a cupboard made of glass. His eyebrows are gray, but his hair is raven black and looks strangely crooked. He is wearing a pelt on his head, I realize, and try not to stare. He rubs his hands together and plasters on a large smile.
I walk forward and force myself to speak to this stranger. “I saw the sign. Cash for gold.”
“That’s right, young lady,” he says, looking me up and down.
My buckskin trousers and fur-lined parka are very different from his clothing, which is made of shiny woven material. I push my hood back and sweep my long hair out of the back of my coat to fall around my face, using it as a curtain between us.
He stares oddly at my eyes and clears his throat. “What can I do you for?” he asks, with a joking smile.
I am having a hard time understanding him—both from his strange expressions and the fact that he speaks through his nose—so instead of talking, I lay my pack on the floor and crouch to dig inside. My fingers find the bag holding my brigand insurance. The objects I was told to use if I needed to negotiate with them.
I pull it out and, after opening the drawstrings, choose carefully and set a stone on the glass in front of the man. I watch his face attentively as he flinches in surprise and then draws a blank expression over his features. A term my father uses when we play cards pops into my mind: he is using a “poker face.”
“Well, now, what do we have here?” the man asks. He picks up the stone and fits a black spyglass type of lens to one eye. “A gold nugget”—he pulls a measuring stick out from beneath the counter—“measuring almost two inches.” He weighs it in his hand and then places it on a metal contraption, squinting as he reads numbers off a little screen. “Weighs a hundred twenty-five grams.” He peers at it again through the lens. “Low to medium quality, I would say. Well, little missy, today’s your lucky day, because I have just the buyer for this sort of nugget, and I can offer you the top-notch price of five hundred dollars.”
There is something wrong with his face. I lay a hand across Neruda’s head, my thumb pressing one of his temples and my middle finger the other. I grasp my opal as I crouch down to whisper into his ear, “How do you feel about this man?”
The man chuckles nervously. “Do you always consult your dog for your business decisions?” he jibes, and a bead of sweat forms on his brow just below the black pelt.
I stare at him and feel the tingle as I connect to Neruda’s thoughts. Animals don’t think in words. It is my dog’s primal instincts that I Read, and Neruda’s instincts tell me the man cannot be trusted. My dog sees him as an inferior pack member that must be expelled to ensure the security of the others.
I stand and hold my palm out. “My nugget,” I insist, and wait.
The man’s hand trembles slightly. “Let’s not be hasty, girlie. I’ll check my charts and see if I can do any better on that offer.”
I pluck my nugget from his fingers before he has a chance to pull his arm away, and turn his scales around toward me. Placing the gold atop the scales as I saw him do, I read aloud from a shiny strip near the base. “Two hundred grams, not a hundred twenty-five.”
I nod toward a sign I saw when I entered the store. “That says you pay forty dollars per gram of gold. According to your chart, you should be offering me eight thousand dollars for this nugget.” I slip the stone back into its bag.
“Now just wait a minute here, missy. You have no idea what standards the pricing is based on. A gold nugget is not as valuable as gold dust, which is what is melted down to make this high-quality jewelry.” He waves his hand to display the ugly jewelry inside the case.
His eyes tell me that he is lying. That my nugget is rare, and that he desperately wants it. I think of Whit’s satisfaction whenever one of us finds a nugget in the Denali riverbeds. “That may serve us well someday,” he says before ordering us to take it to the shelter and stash it with the rest. Unlike plentiful opals and semiprecious stones, the gold nuggets are hard to come by, and this man’s excitement confirms their value.
“I saw another ‘cash for gold’ sign by the waterfront,” I say, and nestle the bag into my rucksack.
“Stop!” he shrieks. Sweat courses down the sides of his face. “Okay, I’ll give you seven thousand,” he says, pain audible in his tone, “as well as some valuable information.”
I hesitate. “What kind of information?”
“Someone is looking for you,” he responds.
We stare at each other in silence for a minute before I fish the bag back out of my rucksack. He ogles it and licks his lips.
“Talk,” I say.
He walks back to where a red plastic apparatus is attached to a wall.
Telephone
, I think, as I recall the picture of a similar one in the EB.
The man pulls a card off a board stuck full of scraps of paper and slaps it down on the counter in front of me. On it is printed a ten-digit number, and scribbled in pencil in one corner is “Girl w/star.”
“They were big guys. Dressed in camo,” the man says. “Came in here yesterday saying they would pay top dollar for information on your whereabouts.”
My chest clenches painfully. The man’s description sounds like Whit’s captors, the big men I saw in the fire holding his arms. Why are they looking for me? “What does this mean?” I ask, pointing to the scribbled words.
“They described you as a teenage girl, long black hair, probably accompanied by two huskies.” He hesitates and studies my face suspiciously. “And what looks like a gold starburst in one eye.”
My starburst. The same as the rest of the clan children. The sign that we are in close union with nature. Yara-Readers. Our parents tell us it is something to be proud of—an inheritance from the earth. But now it marks me as someone to pursue.
And how do these men know what I look like anyway? I could ask the same about how they found my clan. Or how they knew I wasn’t with the rest of the group. But the knowledge that they may actually recognize me chills me to the bone.
I slip the card into my rucksack, pull the nugget back out of the bag, and place it on the counter. The man makes a grabbing motion, but I keep my hand on it. “Count the money out for me first,” I command, and he darts to the back of the room, disappearing through a doorway and then emerging with a handful of paper money.
He begins counting it, and I watch the numbers on each bill as he does, totaling them in my head until he reaches seven thousand. He pushes the stack across the counter toward me, not even looking at my face. His eyes are only for the nugget.
I withdraw my hand, and he plucks up the gold and pushes it under the counter. I have no doubt that the value of my piece is much more than what he has given me. I only hope that it is enough to obtain a boat ticket to wherever it is I am supposed to go.
I turn to leave, and the dogs leap to their feet, rushing before me to the door. They are as uncomfortable as I am in this artificial space with this artificial man.
“A word of advice, girlie,” the man calls as I open the door and gulp in the frosty outdoor air. I glance back at him, and his face has changed. He got what he wanted and his greed is satisfied, so he is happy. “Take out that weird contact lens, cut the hair, and lose the dogs.”
I nod at him and let Beckett and Neruda run outside. “And if I were you,” he yells, as I shut the door behind me, “I would get as far as you can—as fast as you can—out of town.”
I decide to take his advice. At least what I understood of it. Whit’s captors are sure to be watching the harbor, so it will be my last stop. Before that, I have a lot to do.
The woman in Beulah’s Hair Emporium takes one look at the huskies and calls, “It’s cold outside, so the dogs can come in, but they have to stay by the door. We have sanitation regulations, you know.”
I flick my finger, and they immediately drop to lie next to each other under a potted tree. “Wow, you’ve got yourself some obedient dogs there,” Beulah (I suppose) says, and instructing me to hang my coat on a rack, leads me to a chair. “What would you like, dear?”
I point to one of the giant hairstyle photos hanging on the wall.
Beulah gapes at me. “Oh, honey, you can’t mean that. You have such beautiful long hair.” I stare back at her, determined.
A half hour later the dogs and I leave. My hair looks just like the boy’s in the picture.
On the same street as Beulah’s Hair Emporium is a large, bright clothes store called the Gap. I leave the dogs at the door and follow the
MEN’S DEPARTMENT
signs. The artificial light and mirrors make me dizzy, but I deep-breathe and walk downstairs to an underground floor. The stale air makes it feel like a spot-lit tomb.
I leave twenty minutes later wearing all-new clothes, a baseball cap, and a black parka. My new synthetic backpack bulges with five shirts, a red “hoodie,” three sweaters, and three pairs of jeans. After buying some hiking boots at a shop next door, I drape my bulky fur parka and hand-stitched leather rucksack over a garbage can outside and hope that someone like the old lady in the park will find it.
Then the dogs and I head to our final destination together.
“These are beautiful huskies. Can’t say I’ve seen their exact markings anywhere on the sled-dog circuits. Where did you buy them?”
The woman ruffles Beckett’s fur with her fingers and peers up from where she crouches on one knee in front of him.
“My family’s been raising them for a few generations.”
“What’s your family’s name?”
“Will you take care of my dogs for me?” I cross my arms over my chest. My heart hurts so much, it feels like it’s bleeding.
She stands. “Our boarding fees are five hundred dollars per month for one dog. For two it’s nine hundred. I take care of these dogs like they’re my own kids.”
“That’s what the woman at Beulah’s said.” My voice cracks. I can tell that Beckett and Neruda like her and, from that alone, I know she can be trusted.
“How long do you plan on leaving them?” she asks, her tone softening as she sees my emotion.
I clear my throat. I won’t cry in front of this stranger. “I don’t know. But I will be back for them.” I dig through my backpack, count the money quickly, and place it in her hand. “Here’s three thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of cash to be carrying . . . ,” the woman begins to say, and then gasps when she sees what I place in her hand on top of the money.
“And that’s insurance,” I continue. “In case I don’t make it back in three months. I want to know that these dogs will be well cared for and stay with you for the rest of their lives.”
“I can’t take that!” The woman’s face is white with shock.
“Trade it for cash if the money runs out. Otherwise, you can return it to me when I come back for the dogs.” I sink to my knees between Beckett and Neruda and pull their furry heads toward me. I can’t stop the tears now; they are streaming down my face. “Good-bye, friends,” I whisper.
And then, standing, I turn and walk out of the kennel, leaving its astonished director holding a gold nugget more than double the size of what I sold to the gold dealer.
The harbor’s ticket office is a small boxlike building with windows that look like mirrors from the outside but that are see-through on the inside. Above a counter hangs a board listing destinations, dates, and times. For the last few hours I have pushed from my mind every thought but those that facilitate my departure. But now, seeing three dozen cities listed on the departures board, my shock returns in full force. All those cities that we thought were destroyed in the war still exist.
I imagine how astonished my father must have been a few days ago when he discovered that the war never happened. All the protective measures we took to avoid brigands were in vain. Our isolationist mentality kept us from discovering that an outside world still existed.
The flame in my chest burns brighter. Once I’m reunited with my clan, we will discover together what’s actually happened to the world during the last three decades. But right now I have to find them.
I scan the names of the cities as I consider which could possibly be the answer to my oracle’s cryptic clue, “You must go to your source.” And then I see it. Seattle. That’s where my parents came from. Where they lived before I was born. It is my source, in a manner of speaking. And there’s a boat leaving for the city today.
“How much is a ticket to Seattle?” I ask the teenage boy behind the counter. I keep my eyes lowered. The startled reactions of the salespeople and the woman at the kennels when they saw me up close have confirmed to me that my starburst is not a common occurrence in the outside world. No one I’ve come across has eyes like mine, and Whit’s captors even used it to describe me.