Dani walked parallel to her whenever the rugged terrain allowed, keeping a steady five feet between them. The night hadn’t done her a kindness. In the pale light of morning her expression was truly blank, not just shielded like before.
Lynn suspected that the reality of her situation had sunk in. Unlike Lynn, who had settled into her well-practiced habit of dozing without ever falling fully asleep, Dani had drifted into sleep only to awake with a start whenever something scurried, howled, or otherwise made noise nearby. In the darkest hours before daybreak, she’d curled up into a ball and sobbed noiselessly until she’d drifted off into fitful sleep once more.
The blankness of Dani’s mood worried Lynn a little, but her thoughts were occupied with a much more pressing issue: she couldn’t tell if her arm hurt worse or less today. It felt different: tight and stinging. She’d cleaned the bite marks yesterday evening and again this morning. At least a few of the wounds needed stitches; they’d begun to bleed again at the lightest of touches, and the wool she’d tied over it with leather strips had greedily sucked up its share.
Too bad she didn’t have anything on her to stitch them with.
Her wounds would heal, Lynn knew from experience, but as long as they remained open, the risk of infection was severe. It would also take a long, messy time without stitches. For now, she’d slathered the whole area with the thyme ointment Ren had given her, and she’d bandaged it all up as tightly as she could stand. She’d have to figure out something to stitch it with. Eventually.
Lynn took in the overgrown rubble, the slightly swaying trees, the scurrying hares and rabbits.
Skeever saw them too. He zigzagged ahead of them and sniffed constantly. His tail was raised and flitted from side to side.
Speaking of other missing items and future plans… “We should try to find a map.” She molded her voice to a tone of airy neutrality.
Dani regarded her suspiciously. “A map?”
Lynn glanced at her but then quickly diverted her gaze. “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “So this doesn’t happen again.” She motioned in a wide arc to encompass not only the perceived path, but also the entire experience of having to make their way over the crater-pocked, partially buried, car-strewn mess of a road again. And not at all so I can better plan my escape.
“I… guess.”
“Easier said than done, though.” Lynn chuckled and hoped it didn’t come across forced. “A gas station, maybe? If it’s intact, paper might have survived.”
Dani was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, but only if we see one beside the road or something. We don’t want more delays.”
Lynn nodded. Triumph blazed in her chest, and she struggled to quench it so she wouldn’t give herself away. “Absolutely.” A map would allow her to plan her escape route—and Dani knew it too. Lynn was sure of that. Dani was anything but stupid. She glanced aside.
Dani seemed even gloomier.
What was she thinking about? Was she hatching her own plans to get Lynn to stay? Had she been surprised Lynn had still been there come dawn? What she wouldn’t give for the opportunity to sift through Dani’s thoughts even once. For now, she would have to take Dani’s compliance at face value and fake innocence as much as possible. She had to focus on finding a very specific needle in a thoroughly destroyed haystack. Lynn sighed and let her gaze glide over the pulverized city block.
Dani passed the cemetery without looking at it once. She drew up her shoulders, gripped her spear more tightly, and quickened her pace. The effect was marred by a small limp that had developed because of her blisters, which seemed to be worse on her right foot.
Lynn inspected her as she went on ahead, then turned her head toward the cemetery out of a perverse urge to drive home the fact that she could have been a day farther along. She couldn’t see the chapel from this angle—and through the growth that had overtaken the cemetery and buildings beyond—but she knew it had to be there.
Barely a hundred feet after the crumpled overhead road they’d been tracking turned west, they passed one of the many defensive barriers the Old Worlders had constructed before society’s complete collapse. It was a haphazard affair of upturned cars, barbed wire, tanks, and turrets. Every rusty firing nozzle pointed at the sky in eternal vigilance for a threat that would never come again.
The wide-open swing gates revealed a strip of leveled buildings, but then houses and shops rose up as pristine as possible after centuries of exposure to Mother Nature’s insatiable desire to reclaim what humanity had taken from her. Among them stood—as if planted there by grace herself—an overgrown gas station. Its telltale pumps had survived, somewhat protected by a faded canopy, which had once been multi-colored.
Lynn’s heart stumbled. “Dani.” She inclined her head. “Over there.”
Dani frowned as she surveyed the general area Lynn’s nod had indicated. Then her eyes widened. “Unbelievable.”
Lynn grinned. “Come on. Let’s have a look.”
Skeever swerved to catch up with a few seconds’ delay.
Lynn pressed her face to the glass and held her hand over her eyes to shield them as she peered inside.
Intact. All of it. The shelving units were empty except for a toppled can or two. Everything was caked with the dust of ages.
Dani reached past her to check the door handle. “Locked.”
“Step back.” Lynn bashed the glass in with her tomahawk. It splintered into thick cubes that tumbled over the floor on both sides of the door. Like a flock of cooped-up pigeons, stale air that smelled vaguely of rot rushed past.
Skeever whined.
The corner of Dani’s mouth curled downward into a grimace. “Gross.”
“Uh-huh.” Lynn settled her gaze on Skeever. “You stay out here. Stay.”
Skeever tilted his head. Big eyes examined her. He planted his butt.
Dani entered the gas station.
Lynn followed Dani in and zeroed in on her back. What if Dani found a map and destroyed it?
Dani leisurely strolled past the shelves in the left aisle. She didn’t look like a woman hell-bent on getting rid of vital evidence.
Lynn exhaled slowly and diverted her gaze to take in the rest of the shop. Glass crunched underfoot. The scent of death seemed to have seeped into the walls and was ever-present. She went around the shop counterclockwise, and kept her eyes open for a map as well as anything else of use. There wasn’t much to salvage here; whatever had been left behind had spoiled and dehydrated in their containers, leaving them caked and mangled. Magazines lay scattered and curled across the floor. When she stepped on them, they flaked like autumn leaves. Lynn scoured the newspaper stands for a map.
“Oh no.” Dani stood in the doorframe to the back room.
Lynn’s chest constricted. “What?” She hurried over.
Dani stepped back to let her pass. She’d gone a little pale.
They lay side by side on a blanket that had once been red. It had soaked up the waste of decomposition as best it could before the blackened slosh had spread across the tiles. Well, that explains the smell. Dani seemed to find the sight off-putting, but Lynn looked beyond them and zeroed in on a desk against the opposite wall, a sturdy gray metal thing with drawers. Her mouth went dry. “Come on.” She hooked her fingers around Dani’s upper arm and turned her around. “Let’s find a map.”