Monster Planet(94)

In all of that empty land Ayaan had seen not a single survivor. Of course the living were hardly likely to make themselves known to the column, but she had seen no signs of them at all: no villages, not even the thread of smoke from a distant campfire. If they existed at all they were like the fallen creatures she'd seen in Pennsylvania. Hidden away in places no one ever wanted to go.

Of the dead they saw many, and all of them were headed west. Whatever it was that pulled at Ayaan's bones pulled them even more strongly. They could be spotted far to the north and south of the column sometimes, plodding along at the speed of death. Their faces didn't turn to look at the strange caravan that passed them by. Their feet didn't falter. They were being drawn onward inexplicably and inexorably. Ayaan wondered if something had happened recently to inspire them to come or whether this had been going on for years.

Prairie gave way to desert. The hills they climbed over turned silver or purple with sage, or a brilliant yellow where they were covered in millions of black-eyed susans, asters and fleabane. In the troughs between the rises broad swaths of grama or fescue or big bluestem grass flourished, anywhere there was a little water. They started to climb, the roads got steeper as the hills turned into mountains cloaked in loblolly pine and fir trees. They began to find pockets of snow hidden anywhere a hollow in the earth might give a little shade from the sun.

'This was all different,' Nilla said. She sat down on the edge of the flatbed, dangling her legs over the track. She gestured around at the mountains green with stunted pine trees and juniper bushes. 'There was less green, more brown. All of this looked like... I don't know. Like another planet, a dead one. I guess the ghouls ate it all, the vegetation, but then it grew back. It's funny, isn't it. The Source is for all of us, living and dead. It makes everything grow and it doesn't play favorites.'

Ayaan didn't pretend to follow Nilla's train of thought. As for herself she wasn't thinking much of anything, really, just watching the road go by beneath their wheels like the most tranquil movie in history. Here a sprig of bitterbrush would squeeze up between the broken rocks of the track. Next she would see the broad chevrons of the hot rod's wheel tread where it had spun out a little in loose dirt. She had learned over the space of weeks to fall into a trance state whenever she wanted to. She remembered Erasmus standing at the portholes of the nuclear waste ship Pinega, watching the waves for days on end, just watching them rise and fall. She supposed this was the one great consolation of being dead. She was removed from time'her body did not recognize the passage of hours or days or months the way it had before she was murdered. Her period or at least the time when she should have menstruated had come and gone without so much as an episode of spotting. She didn't miss that, at least.

'Oh, shit,' Nilla said. It was shocking enough to make Ayaan look up. She saw nothing, really, except for a scar on the side of the mountain. A place where the trees weren't as dense. She looked closer and saw a twisted piece of metal glinting dully between two trees.

'Something has come back to you,' Ayaan suggested. 'A memory.'

Nilla grasped her wrist. Not in an aggressive manner. Like a little girl wanting some reassurance. 'Come with me,' she begged and then she leapt down to the road. Ayaan followed, of course, though not altogether happily. She understood what was happening. Nilla had come this way on her journey to the east. Now she was going to have to recreate that passage but in reverse.

There had to be things in the past that had driven her across the country. Things no one would ever want to revisit.

Together they wove through the trees, climbing over deadfall, picking their way through whip-thin branches that showered them in dust and organic debris and crackling snow as they pushed through. The snow underfoot had formed a thin crust and it crunched like styrofoam under their footsteps.

Ayaan looked back at the column, which hadn't stopped moving. She hadn't been so far away from it in weeks and she felt strangely vulnerable, even with the trees arching over her. She turned again and saw Nilla getting ahead of her.

'What is it?' Ayaan called out. 'What was it?' she asked, more softly. She found the piece of metal she'd seen from the track, rusted and scorched. A line of rivets, some of them burst by metal fatigue and time, bisected the shard. She moved deeper into the woods and found more pieces, some of them embedded in tree trunks. The pines had grown around the wreckage in soft, flowing contours.

'Oh, no,' Nilla said from somewhere further into the forest. Her voice was as soft as the constant sound of needles falling through the branches. The same sound, the same softness, the snow made when it fell from the trees. Ayaan hurried on.