“Without peeking.”
“You’re on,” I mumble, trying to disguise the fact that my throat is thick with tears.
“Don’t be afraid. You’ll be fine. You’re strong, you’re fast, and you’re smart.” He’s trying to convince himself, too.
Why am I leaving him? It’s such a long shot that Sharon is still human.
But when I saw her face on the news, I was so sure.
It was just a normal raid, one of a thousand. As usual when we felt isolated enough, safe enough, we had the TV on as we cleaned out the pantry and fridge. Just to get the weather forecast; there isn’t much entertainment in the dead-boring everything-is-perfect reports that pass for news among the parasites. It was the hair that caught my eye-the flash of deep, almost pink red that I’d only ever seen on one person.
I can still see the look on her face as she peeked at the camera from the corner of one eye. The look that said, I’m trying to be invisible; don’t see me. She walked not quite slowly enough, working too hard at keeping a casual pace. Trying desperately to blend in.
No body snatcher would feel that need.
What is Sharon doing walking around human in a huge city like Chicago? Are there others? Trying to find her doesn’t even seem like a choice, really. If there is a chance there are more humans out there, we have to locate them.
And I have to go alone. Sharon will run from anyone but me-well, she will run from me, too, but maybe she will pause long enough for me to explain. I am sure I know her secret place.
“And you?” I ask him in a thick voice. I’m not sure I can physically bear this looming goodbye. “Will you be safe?”
“Neither heaven nor hell can keep me apart from you, Melanie.”
Without giving me a chance to catch my breath or wipe away the fresh tears, she threw another at me.
Jamie curls up under my arm-he doesn’t fit the way he used to. He has to fold in on himself, his long, gangly limbs poking out in sharp angles. His arms are starting to turn hard and sinewy, but in this moment he’s a child, shaking, cowering almost. Jared is loading the car. Jamie would not show this fear if he were here. Jamie wants to be brave, to be like Jared.
“I’m scared,” he whispers.
I kiss his night-dark hair. Even here among the sharp, resinous trees, it smells like dust and sun. It feels like he is part of me, that to separate us will tear the skin where we are joined.
“You’ll be fine with Jared.” I have to sound brave, whether I feel that way or not.
“I know that. I’m scared for you. I’m scared you won’t come back. Like Dad.”
I flinch. When Dad didn’t come back-though his body did eventually, trying to lead the Seekers to us-it was the most horror and the most fear and the most pain I’d ever felt. What if I do that to Jamie again?
“I’ll come back. I always come back.”
“I’m scared,” he says again.
I have to be brave.
“I promise everything will be fine. I’m coming back. I promise. You know I won’t break a promise, Jamie. Not to you.”
The shaking slows. He believes me. He trusts me.
And another:
I can hear them on the floor below. They will find me in minutes, or seconds. I scrawl the words on a dirty shred of newsprint. They are nearly illegible, but if he finds them, he will understand:
Not fast enough. Love you love Jamie. Don’t go home.
Not only do I break their hearts, I steal their refuge, too. I picture our little canyon home abandoned, as it must be forever now. Or if not abandoned, a tomb. I see my body leading the Seekers to it. My face smiling as we catch them there…
“Enough,” I said out loud, cringing away from the whiplash of pain. “Enough! You’ve made your point! I can’t live without them either now. Does that make you happy? Because it doesn’t leave me many choices, does it? Just one-to get rid of you. Do you want the Seeker inside you? Ugh!” I recoiled from the thought as if I would be the one to house her.
There is another choice, Melanie thought softly.
“Really?” I demanded with heavy sarcasm. “Show me one.”
Look and see.
I was still staring at the mountain peak. It dominated the landscape, a sudden upthrust of rock surrounded by flat scrubland. Her interest pulled my eyes over the outline, tracing the uneven two-pronged crest.
A slow, rough curve, then a sharp turn north, another sudden turn back the other way, twisting back to the north for a longer stretch, and then the abrupt southern decline that flattened out into another shallow curve.
Not north and south, the way I’d always seen the lines in her piecemeal memories; it was up and down.
The profile of a mountain peak.
The lines that led to Jared and Jamie. This was the first line, the starting point.
I could find them.
We could find them, she corrected me. You don’t know all the directions. Just like with the cabin, I never gave you everything.
“I don’t understand. Where does it lead? How does a mountain lead us?” My pulse beat faster as I thought of it: Jared was close. Jamie, within my reach.
She showed me the answer.
“They’re just lines. And Uncle Jeb is just an old lunatic. A nut job, like the rest of my dad’s family.” I try to tug the book out of Jared’s hands, but he barely seems to notice my effort.
“A nut job, like Sharon’s mom?” he counters, still studying the dark pencil marks that deface the back cover of the old photo album. It’s the one thing I haven’t lost in all the running. Even the graffiti loony Uncle Jeb left on it during his last visit has sentimental value now.
“Point taken.” If Sharon is still alive, it will be because her mother, loony Aunt Maggie, could give loony Uncle Jeb a run for the title of Craziest of the Crazy Stryder Siblings. My father had been only slightly touched by the Stryder madness-he didn’t have a secret bunker in the backyard or anything. The rest of them, his sister and brothers, Aunt Maggie, Uncle Jeb, and Uncle Guy, were the most devoted of conspiracy theorists. Uncle Guy had died before the others disappeared during the invasion, in a car accident so commonplace that even Maggie and Jeb had struggled to make an intrigue out of it.
My father always affectionately referred to them as the Crazies. “I think it’s time we visited the Crazies,” Dad would announce, and then Mom would groan-which is why such announcements had happened so seldom.
On one of those rare visits to Chicago, Sharon had snuck me into her mother’s hidey-hole. We got caught-the woman had booby traps every-where. Sharon was scolded soundly, and though I was sworn to secrecy, I’d had a sense Aunt Maggie might build a new sanctuary.
But I remember where the first is. I picture Sharon there now, living the life of Anne Frank in the middle of an enemy city. We have to find her and bring her home.
Jared interrupts my reminiscing. “Nut jobs are exactly the kind of people who will have survived. People who saw Big Brother when he wasn’t there. People who suspected the rest of humanity before the rest of humanity turned dangerous. People with hiding places ready.” Jared grins, still study-ing the lines. And then his voice is heavier. “People like my father. If he and my brothers had hidden rather than fought… Well, they’d still be here.”
My tone is softer, hearing the pain in his. “Okay, I agree with the theory. But these lines don’t mean anything.”
“Tell me again what he said when he drew them.”
I sigh. “They were arguing-Uncle Jeb and my dad. Uncle Jeb was trying to convince him that something was wrong, telling him not to trust anyone. Dad laughed it off. Jeb grabbed the photo album from the end table and started… almost carving the lines into the back cover with a pencil. Dad got mad, said my mom would be angry. Jeb said, ‘Linda’s mom asked you all to come up for a visit, right? Kind of strange, out of the blue? Got a little upset when only Linda would come? Tell you the truth, Trev, I don’t think Linda will be minding anything much when she gets back. Oh, she might act like it, but you’ll be able to tell the difference.’ It didn’t make sense at the time, but what he said really upset my dad. He ordered Uncle Jeb out of the house. Jeb wouldn’t leave at first. Kept warning us not to wait until it was too late. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into his side. ‘Don’t let ’em get you, honey,’ he whispered. ‘Follow the lines. Start at the beginning and follow the lines. Uncle Jeb’ll keep a safe place for you.’ That’s when Dad shoved him out the door.”