Cal raised an eyebrow, and she knew she couldn’t say what else she was thinking: that the Spikes were magnificent, proof that the people who had built them were magnificent, creative and daring, and threatening, too. But it was only a taste of threat, a dash of it, for flavor. She knew if she told all this to Cal, he’d say she was being na?ve again, that she had too much faith in people and in their capacity for joy and art.
They kept walking. There was no doubt they’d gone farther than Bo and Sandy had dared, for the walk became more mazelike and challenging, nothing like what Bo had described to Cal. A few Spikes had been built so close together, they were impassable, and Frida and Cal had to navigate around them, doubling back until they found a wider path. Frida was thankful each Spike was so specific, each one its own landmark; otherwise, they would have no way of knowing if they were moving forward, backward, or in circles.
“This is like a video game,” Cal said at one point.
“Like your mom ever let you play a video game,” Frida said.
When they hit another wall, six Spikes so close their necks intertwined like swans’, Frida felt her first pang of fear. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. They might be stuck in here, she thought, panic winching her throat closed. How long did they have to walk? Would they ever get there? She shook the questions away, tried to play it cool as Cal pulled her left, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. She wanted to make him laugh, wanted to maintain a clear mind. There was an end to this maze. The trick was not to freak out. She kept looking to the ground, at the dead grass beneath her. The land was flat here. They could have been on an old soccer field. In the last hour, the entire world had begun to feel man-made, not just the Spikes. This should have made her hyper with expectation, but now she felt as Cal did: hesitant, suspicious.
She had just asked Cal for a sip of water from his canteen—screw the rationing; why hadn’t they followed that sound of water, a ways back?—when she heard a sound like knuckles cracking, like the twist of an old man’s spine. She stopped.
“What?” Cal whispered.
“Listen,” she said, and thought immediately of Micah, of his last word, which she had exiled from her vocabulary after his death. Cal must have noticed the word, too, because he had turned pale.
The sound again. Frida imagined someone, a man, hiding behind one of these many Spikes. He was cracking the knuckles on his other hand, one by one.
“Who’s there?” Cal called out. His voice was steady, and it gave Frida confidence.
“We’ve come for help,” she yelled, trying to sound as calm as he had.
Nothing. They waited. And waited.
A tightrope of anxiety strung itself sharp across Frida’s body. Her poor baby. This feeling, if it remained, would ruin him. He’d come out of her trembling.
Frida looked up. The Spike next to her was the tallest one yet, and at its top sat an orange traffic cone, bent over in defeat as if a big rig had run over it.
She was still looking at it, wondering if it was a signpost for these people, when she heard a whistle like a catcall, and a man stepped from behind a Spike a few feet away.
He was more of a boy. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and he was thin, small framed. Frida was shocked by how normal he looked; he didn’t wear a gown of feathers or chain mail or a silver space suit. He had on a dingy white T-shirt; the elastic around the neck was shot, so that it ruffled flaccid at his collarbone. Brown corduroys, the hems frayed. His sandals looked like they’d been made from tires.
“Go away,” he said. He carried a rifle, but he held it against his thigh, as if he had no intention or desire to use it.
Cal stepped forward and put out his hand slowly. “Please. My wife and I have come to find out who’s out here…We’ve settled so close to you.”
The man looked Cal up and down. He did not take his hand.
His hair was dark brown and pulled into a scraggly ponytail. His eyes, also brown, were clear and focused. There was nothing shifty or unpredictable about him, Frida realized.
“Go away,” he repeated.
“No,” Frida said. “Not until we get some help.”
He shook his head. “You need to leave. I can give you water, but that’s all.”
Frida put a hand to her chest. “That’s it?”
The man raised an eyebrow and turned to Cal. “What’s with the shirt?” he finally asked.
“Pussy is a kind of mushroom,” Frida said.
Cal blushed, and the man just looked confused.
Frida looked away from his face and to his hand, the one that was wrapped around the gun. It was calloused and dry, his fingernails caked with dirt. The man lifted his left hand to scratch his smooth cheek, and Frida saw that his fingertips were peeling, almost chapped.
Tattoos had been so common by the time they’d left L.A., Frida hadn’t noticed the ones on this stranger at first, but then they were all she could see. A single blue party balloon floated across the inside of his wrist, and what looked like an octopus tentacle, suction cups and all, peeked from his shirtsleeve. There was an old-fashioned anchor, too; it was no doubt ironic, this kid hadn’t been on a ship in his life.