“Someone saw you.” I didn’t mention it had taken me an hour to get across the lake, clinging to those thorny branches.
Arden smiled, like she was remembering something funny. “I taught myself. That would never occur to you, huh, Miss Valedictorian?”
I ignored her. “You weren’t afraid they’d catch you?” Up ahead, a gray rabbit hopped across the road.
“The guards usually aren’t out past twelve, unless they’re on some special duty. Most nights the compound is pretty quiet.” Arden stalked toward the rabbit, her knife outstretched in front of her. It froze as she crept closer.
I couldn’t get the image of her swimming out of my head. I’d never seen anyone do it before. Had she ventured into the water and flailed her arms? Did she hold onto something? A tree limb, a rope? “But weren’t you afraid you would drown?”
At the sound of my voice, the rabbit bounded off into the overgrown remnants of a front yard.
“Nice one, Eve,” Arden huffed, as she eased the knife back into her belt. “I’d love to have a heart to heart, really, but I need to hunt for our dinner.” She took off between the houses, not bothering to look back.
“I’ll find my own dinner!” I called after her. “Meet you back at the cottage?”
She didn’t respond. I started down the trail, following it out of the neighborhood and back toward a strip of decrepit stores. An old restaurant was covered with tall grass, a giant yellow M just visible through vines and moss. A massive building sat at the end of the block. Its facade was still sturdy but letters had fallen off the sign. It read: WAL MA T. Scrawled in spray paint across the broken front windows were the words: QUARANTINE AREA. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.
When the truck came through the barricades to evacuate any healthy children who were left, my mother begged them to take me. I flung myself on the mailbox, my thin arms wrapped around its wooden post, desperate to stay. It was useless. She appeared in the doorway as they put me on the truck’s bed, blood running from her nose. Her eyes were sunken in, the color of rotting plums. Her sternum jutted from her chest like a sacrificial necklace. She stood there and waved good-bye. Blew me a kiss.
Now, moving through the abandoned town, I tried not to look at the giant wooden crosses in the parking lot, or the piles of bones beneath them, enveloped in moss. But everywhere I turned there were signs of death. Across the street the windows of an abandoned shop called Northern California Real Estate were boarded up. Coffins were stacked inside a place called Suzy’s Nails. I was staring at the red X painted on the side of a Dumpster when something moved in front of me. A bear cub sauntered across the trail and gazed at me. Then he turned his attention back to a rusty can of food, which he tried to pry open with his paws.
I thought of Winnie the Pooh, the archived book Teacher Florence would read to us when we were children, about the bear and his good friend Christopher Robin. She had warned us that most bears were not so friendly, but this baby cub seemed too tiny to be dangerous. I wondered if he was craving honey, or if that was just some strange fiction from the story.
I reached out, careful not to startle him. The bear sniffed my arm with its wet nose. I petted the little thing’s soft, brown coat, enjoying the way it scratched lightly at my skin.
“Yes, you are just like Winnie,” I said. He started off toward the side of the trail to sniff at some more old cans. I wondered if Arden would let me bring him back to the house. Maybe we could keep him there for a while. I’d never had a pet before.
I reached for him again, but pulled my hand back when I heard a deafening growl. A massive bear stood on her hind legs just off the road. She towered above me.
The cub padded over to her and she opened her mouth again, showing her teeth. I straightened up, the hair on the back of my neck bristling in fear. Tremors shook my hands. The bear charged forward, her head down, and my thin arms came up in a pathetic block. I braced myself for her attack when something struck her in the face.
A rock. As the bear growled again, another stone struck her head, and she fell back, her massive bottom meeting the road. I turned around. A filthy, dirt-caked boy sat atop a black horse, clutching a slingshot in his hand. His skin was tanned a reddish brown and his muscular chest was speckled with mud.
“You better climb on,” he said, tucking the slingshot in the back pocket of his pants. “This isn’t over.”
I glanced back at the bear, who was shaking her head, momentarily stunned. I didn’t know which was worse: to be killed by some brute animal or be taken off with a wild Neanderthal on horseback. The boy reached out his hand. His fingernails were crusted with black.
“Come on!” he urged.