37- through the low valley
Deno and Lacey’s exit is the exact opposite of our entrance. Reece and I watch them ease out of the mine, just as the dawn’s pale rays put color back in the sky. No clouds today, just the watery blue of morning. And no bees, as far as I can see.
“Maybe Rafette knows we aren’t in the Bus,” I say.
We’re standing only ten feet back from the entrance. Not far.
Reece doesn’t answer. He’s listening, head cocked. “Rafette isn’t here,” he says at last.
“You can tell?”
He nods. “I don’t smell him.”
Sure enough, there’s one distant caw, though not from any self-respecting crow—it’s Deno’s butchered interpretation—and we let out twin breaths. Of relief and anxiety. As we planned before Deno and Lacey departed, one caw meant no sign of bees. Two caws meant our enemies were out there, waiting to ambush, and we should stay where we are.
One caw means it’s time to run.
“The other Beekeepers are moving on,” he says. “They’re limited by how long they can stay away from their energy source. They helped Rafette, probably out of curiosity, but they won’t deplete themselves for his mission.” He holds out his hand with a crooked smile. “Ready to hike?”
I roll the sleep from my shoulders and take his hand. “No, but let’s go.”
We have a long way to go. Downhill, while better than uphill, is still lousy. The ground is uneven and rain-soaked, making my ankle throb and my ribs ache. Our ultimate goal is to get to the school, find emergency personnel, and get out of Cadence. By splitting up, Deno and Lacey take the van and hopefully get any watchful Beekeepers to follow them. This would give Reece and me a chance to evade Rafette by taking the direct, overland route straight to the spot where the helicopters seem to be coming and going from. However, that plan is subject to change depending on a multitude of factors I simply refuse to think about. Really, all we know is that we have to go. It’s the crappiest plan ever, but it’s what we have.
Gnawing at my mind is the knowledge that if Reece would just turn into a crow and leave, he’d be safe. He could rejoin his family, wherever they are, and be free. I suggested it, again, but he refuses to leave me until he knows I’m safe.
During the night, we worked through ideas, searching for the perfect plan, but there wasn’t one. Lacey had suggested staying in the mine, but Reece made the point that if Rafette decides to wait us out, we could be days or weeks without food and water. The facts were this: The next town is eighteen miles away, and we have no clue how to find a road to it. With Deno and me—but especially Deno—needing medical attention, the decision was to go.
It’s a harsh walk through the woods, not a trail, through brush and thick stands of trees. The wet leaves buffer some of our sounds, but we’re not stealthy. Eventually, we find ourselves in the backyard of a little blue house. I don’t know whose. This is not my neighborhood. My directions are all messed up. Behind the house, an uncovered grill sits on an empty deck—a reminder of easier times in the town of Cadence. We walk alongside the house to the front and stop. The street is quiet except for the omnipresent whir of helicopter blades. The street and front yards of all the houses on this side are flooded. Trees and mailboxes poke out of the thick brown water like forlorn survivors.
Inside the house, a small dog has detected us and starts up a hopeful barking. I think of Roger, and pluck Reece’s jacket. “There’s a dog trapped in there.”
“I hear it,” he replies.
“We can’t leave it.”
“We have to.” His voice is hard. He takes my chin between his fingers and tilts my face up to his. “Look, as we head down into the valley and into town, you’re going to see things. Terrible things. Don’t feel bad if you need to look away. Forcing yourself to look doesn’t make you a better person or anything. It just leaves you with memories you can’t erase.” He turns away from me. “That little dog is safer inside than out.”
My hands curl into fists. The cuts on my palms hurt, but I do it anyway. I’ve seen enough in this short life of mine. Enough suffering, enough death. But this time, he’s right. If Roger had come when called, he’d be here with us. And that wouldn’t be such a good thing. He’d be afraid and hungry. He’d be one more thing I’d be worrying about.
“Are we going through that?” I ask, pointing at the water.
Reece eyes the route ahead with distaste. “Looks like it. Prepare to get cold and dirty.”
I steel myself to the dog’s cries, but take note of the house number and street name. Maybe I’ll have the chance to tell someone about the dog.
Reece sets his jaw and strides forward, into the water. I follow, letting out a hiss of discomfort when the ice-cold liquid curls around my shins. In no time, my teeth are chattering. It feels like I’m chilled from the inside out. We’re three houses away before the dog gives up and falls silent. I try not to think about it.
We forgo the streets and cut straight through peoples’ yards. The houses become closer together and smaller the lower into the valley we go. Yards turn into small, fenced-in rectangles, and we’re back to streets, as the fences are not worth climbing over. Evidence of the landslide comes into view. A layer of dirt and gravel coats everything in brown—cars, trees, homes. We turn a corner, and the devastation comes into clear view. It looks like a bomb hit. But it’s the randomness of it that is truly disturbing. Some homes are destroyed, others stand untouched, as if spared by a divine hand. And, looming behind it all, is the sad remnant of Mt. Serenity. Not a mountain anymore at all.
The water comes up to our knees here, and it’s thick with all the mud, making it feel like we’re slogging through peanut butter. A house with a duck mailbox comes into view, and suddenly, it all looks familiar.
“We’re near Deno’s house,” I spin around and stumble toward where my friend’s house should be.
“Angie, wait,” Reece says, but I don’t listen. I need to see if his house is still there.
I fumble with someone’s chain link gate and pry it open, cutting through their yard to the street on the other side. Relief turns my knees mushy. This section of street was spared serious damage. Deno’s house still stands.
I half expect the front door to slam open and Mrs. Steinway to come out in a billowing housedress, yelling at me to get out of the cold and have some pie. But the door doesn’t open. The windows are dark, like all the rest. I don’t know what happened to Deno’s parents, but I do know that Cadence will never be the same. It’s as scarred as the mountain behind it. I stand here in the ruins of this neighborhood, built so many years ago by the company that mined the broken mountain. I can’t imagine people living here again. Of civilization returning to this silent, drowned town. I think of my mom’s Bus, wherever Lacey and Deno took it, and it strikes me how, once again, the world I knew has been torn apart, obliterated.
A sound comes from behind me. Reece is across the street, standing inside a house that has the front ripped off. Smoke wafts from the wreckage. I can see his head and shoulders above the jagged opening, in what was probably the living room. I open my mouth to call out, warn him to get out of there. It looks horribly unsafe. Smoldering beams teeter above him, where a roof used to be. They could fall any minute, but I hold my tongue. The way he’s standing there is so strange. Still and placid, like a meditating monk.
“Reece!” I call out. He doesn’t so much as twitch, and that alarms me. It’s not like my voice is competing with any other noise. I splash my way over to him, but when I reach him, he’s still zoned out. And then I see why.
There’s two dead people in there. A young couple, is my impression, and that’s based on the clothes. I can’t look away. Blood is everywhere. The shallow water he’s standing in is oily dark with it. I glimpse twisted limbs and a severed arm, floating. Fingers curled slightly. An open mouth. Eyes wide open, staring at the sky. My gaze swings and holds on living, breathing Reece. Red-black eyes are fixed on the gruesome scene before him. He breathes through his teeth. A wild flush darkens his cheeks as he absorbs the fleeting, lingering energy of the semi-recent dead. That’s definitely what he’s doing. I shudder and turn away, feeling oddly embarrassed, as if I am witnessing a private act. It’s so easy, sometimes, to forget that Reece is different. That he’s not quite human, and all this horror is not quite as horrible for him.
“Reece.” I touch his arm, tentatively.
He turns abruptly, and I snatch my hand back. He’s searing hot again.
He blinks at me slowly, but I’m not sure he sees me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, like I don’t know. Like I’m trying to be polite or something. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He rakes shaky fingers through his hair. “These were…there’s so much energy here—way more than I need right now—it’s overwhelming.”
I put a hand over my mouth and stifle a gag. My voice is a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know how you can—”
“I wish I could explain it to you, Angie,” he says. “It’s like being ultra alive and completely dead at the same time.” He grabs my sleeve and tugs it with a weird urgency. “We have to stay together. Whatever happens from now on, we can’t be separated.”
“Okay, okay.” I pry his hand off my sleeve and twine my fingers with his. His grip is almost painful. “So don’t go running off to every dead person you come across.” There’re bound to be more of them. I sneak another quick peek at the deceased couple—or what’s left of them under the collapsed section of their attic—and bear down on another wave of nausea. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes. How far is it to the school? I’m getting you on the first heli—” He breaks off, gaze narrowing on something beyond my shoulder.
“What is it?” I whip around, and I see. “Oh no.”
Across the street and two houses down, a man stands on the peak of a roof. His posture is easy, completely unconcerned with falling. His head swivels slowly, scanning the street. It’s Rafette. I recognize the hat. That puffy coat I’ve grown to hate.
Reece grabs my jacket and yanks me down, below the shattered window frame and hopefully out of sight. His hand burns against my spine. “Don’t move.”
“Do you think he saw us?” My heart pounds so loud, every living thing within two miles must hear it.
“Don’t think so.” He lifts his head to peek out. “We have to go before he does.”
A crow suddenly cries out, and five dark birds streak over the rooftops. They fly low and make noise. Rafette turns away, watching the birds.
Reece whispers a thank-you to his family for the distraction and tugs me forward. We slip out of the gaping opening in the front of the house and move to the rear, flattening ourselves against vinyl siding. It’s hard to move in water and not make splashy sounds, but we’re not the only things disturbing the water. All sorts of things float around, liberated from peoples’ homes. A child’s plastic Big Wheels. Half-empty gallons of paint. The bloating corpse of a cat.
We hug the side of the house and slip through the rear neighbor’s backyard. We sneak up another few streets, moving from house to house. Reece ducks into someone’s open garage and pulls me in behind him. We press against the wall.
“Have we lost him?”
He puts a finger to his lips and points to the garage window. The view shows a sliver of the street we were just on, between two homes. Rafette turns his head back and forth with clear frustration, then heads up the street. Away from us, again. We wait until he’s out of sight before sinking to the floor.
A wave of dizziness forces me to drop my head to my knees until it passes.
“Are you sick?” he asks.
“No.” Frightened out of my mind, hungry, hurting, yes.
Reece rubs absent circles on my back. There’s a frown in his voice. “How far are we from the school?” He asked me this before.
“Not far,” I say. “About a quarter mile east of here.” Not in the same direction Rafette went, but not the opposite, either.
He rubs his eyes with a frown. A light sweat gleams on his forehead. “How bad do I look?”
“You have the scary eyes.”
“Damn.” He closes them. “I’m not going to be able to go with you when we reach the school. I can’t let them see me like this.”
I give a slow nod. He definitely shouldn’t let himself be seen right now. The truth is, it’s more than his eyes that’s scary. I’ve never seen him look quite this…inhuman. “Hey.” I touch his heated cheek. “Are you all right? You look really strange.”
“I’m fine.” But he turns away. “My body is fighting the urge to change. The crow wants to take over so badly. It’s taking some effort to not do that.” He catches my gaze and holds up a finger. “But I am not doing that. Don’t worry.”
I bite my lip and hold back from telling him how much he should change and fly away, but we’re past that conversation. Even if we weren’t, now would not be the time to have it.