“Effective? What the hell does that mean—?”
“It only affects the borders of the populations. It doesn’t impact the majority of people.”
The general was quiet for a moment. “I shouldn’t disclose this… but what does it matter at this point? Our fear is that they are trapping every population. Storms on one border; fires, sickness, violence on the others. They’ll be no way to escape; every damn country will be paralyzed, unable to flee. We’ll be ripe for the picking, if that’s their intention. Alright, the drones are up. I’m putting one of my geographic experts on the line to guide you where you can drive. A final warning, William: You do anything questionable, and we’re coming right for you.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
A pause, then another man’s voice. “Sir, this is Corporal Sava. We’ve studied the terrain. First thing you’ll have to do is backtrack off the plateau.”
William followed the orders, driving the ATV for an hour across the bone-dry and at times brutally uneven terrain. The corporal explained that a drone above him would guide him to Interstate 94, which would lead him into the canyon. William clearly understood what that drone carried that could be dropped at any moment.
“We’ve got nothing,” General Wolve practically shouted when he snatched the phone from the corporal. “Everything is dead out there. The girl is useless so far, she only says it looks like a mountain. You said you’ve seen it, can’t you give us anything?”
“I wish I could. What I’ve seen is replicated a million times out there.”
“Dammit. Are you even in the canyon yet?”
“I can see the interstate now. Driving as fast as I can, but it’s rough out here.”
The corporal got back on the line and directed him down the blessedly smooth pavement, utterly deserted by order of the military. It reminded him of driving on the abandoned Louisiana highway, with no one but a dying old man and a terrified little girl as company.
“William,” Wolve’s voice shot through the speakerphone. “We think we’ve found it.”
“What do you see?”
“It’s isolated. Apart from the others. And we’re seeing it now. There’s something above it, moving. Your grandmother says it’s how the beetles looked above the trees. Stand by, we’re figuring out how to get you to it. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
William pressed the pedal further, thankful that the gas gauge read nearly full.
“Mr. Chance, you should be passing over the Little Missouri River now,” Corporal Sava said. “You’ll have to start slowing down. You’re going to have to take what looks to be East River Road. There’s no exit, you’ll have to off-road onto it.”
He could feel the proximity of Lily’s sister growing stronger as he exited once again onto the jarringly bumpy earth. As he jumbled onto the road, he accelerated.
“You’ll stay on this for a while. But get ready to off-road again,” Sava said.
Clearly designed to be a sightseeing destination, the road provided stunning views of the sprawling Badlands and the towering mesas beyond. A half hour on the road, the feeling of déjà vu began to creep in.
“Alright, at that next curve, you’re going to have to just head northeast. I can tell the terrain isn’t smooth.”
He steered onto grasslands, thankful for the military vehicle’s stabilization as he rumbled through the wildflowers and wheatgrass, nearly colliding more than once with a petrified tree. As he approached a particularly isolated butte, the smell of rotten meat hit, and nearly caused him to gag. A herd of dead buffalo, at least twenty strong, lay surrounded by a swirl of flies. He lifted his shirt over his mouth, trying not to breathe.
He vaguely remembered from his junior high geography class that buttes were typically smaller than mesas and plateaus. But the solitary imperial formation, building from the earth with sheer walls and topped with a staggering array of jutting rock, was massive.
He’d seen it so many times over the past year, but only for that fleeting moment, as the dream took him from the hospital into the stone itself.
It defied logic to think that anything could be alive inside.
His throat clogged, and he wished there was water nearby. Thudding across the earth, he at last came to park before it.
“Ok, proceed with caution.” The general was back on the phone. “Take the satellite phone with you. There should be a rifle in the back. Grab it. We’re watching. Keep talking to us.”
William unplugged the phone and stepped out, opening the back of the Humvee to find carefully mounted rifles. Beside them rested two service pistols. Preferring the idea of concealing a weapon more than approaching obviously armed, he slid one into the back of his jeans.
The heat blasted him as he squinted, looking up at the blinding blue sky above. In the near distance, he could hear the whirling of the drone.
If he didn’t know what to look for, it could have been easily missed. It was, after all, further up into the sky than insects should be. Yet the swarm was unmistakable. Whatever diseases killed below somehow did not wipe out the creatures above.
He watched the swarm change and twist. For a moment, he saw it take shape, right before it broke apart again.
“My grandmother was right,” William said into the phone. “Tell her she was right. I see it. I see the strand.”
“OK. Careful now. Keep talking.”
“I’m walking up.”
The dream had shown him the crevices left behind by erosion, the redness of the scoria. Around it, nothing grew. Nothing thrived.
How could a child be inside?
“Any sign of the girl? You might have to walk around.”
“Nothing yet.”
The fissures scattered across the rock appeared to deepen as the outcroppings began casting lengthy shadows as the sun dropped.
“Something’s happening,” William said.
“What is it? Talk to us.”
He took a suddenly step back as he realized he was not seeing a darkening contour, but a widening division splitting the rock before him. It made no sound, no cracking of the earth. Fluidly it parted, not offering a formal passageway, but wide enough to step into.
“It’s opening.”
“The rock? Opening? OK, back away. We’re flying the drone closer—”
The phone suddenly went dead. The buzzing of the drone ceased as well, and seconds later William flinched and whirled around as it came crashing to the earth.
“General?” William said.
The phone’s screen was black. He pressed the power button, but it failed to respond.
He looked from the dead device to the rock.
His heart thudded in his chest, thinking of the online material he’d furiously read while flying to the disaster site in an effort to educate himself about the terrain on which he would ultimately travel.
The nation’s twenty-sixth president, for whom the park was named, had loved the Badlands, describing the rocks as characters that were fantastically broken. Roosevelt’s quote was repeated on most websites.
“…so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.”
He reached out for Lily’s sister. He could feel her, less than a yard or two away.
All he had to do was touch her. Touch her and it would be over.
He stepped into the opening, the darkness beyond beginning to lighten. He hesitantly moved inwards, reaching out to touch the sides of the rock to steady himself. He swallowed a bit of revulsion when the walls felt clammy, not unlike a sweaty palm.
The opening continued to brighten, revealing walls the color of liquid metal, littered with scores of lights embedded deep in broken lines. It was when he turned back, hoping that the glimpse of daylight from the familiar world would give him strength, that he realized his mistake.