A leech.
I scraped it away, leaving a smudge of my blood. I found two more on my other leg and flicked them back into the river. If I wasn’t lost, I was certainly off course, which meant I’d have to find higher ground to regain my bearings. I continued upslope, damp pants clinging to my legs, the pass growing steeper and steeper until I had to lean forward and use my hands to pull myself up a rocky rise.
Would you climb mountains?
If they were between me and you, those mountains I would climb.
At last I reached the top, tumbling over the lip, landing in a mud wallow. My muscles gave out under the burn, and I sprawled there panting in the soothing wet.
It felt so pleasant lying here. It would be so easy to rest, to drift off, to give up.
Would you crawl through mud for me?
I shoved myself up to all fours, shook my head hard, drew in a deep breath.
If mud needed crawling through to get to you, I would.
I stood, sludge caking my hands and knees. Staggering with exhaustion, I drifted into the thickening pines. The branches drew denser and denser, needles crowding in on me from all sides until it felt like I’d be skewered alive. Finally I broke into a clearing, scratching at my aching arms.
At first I didn’t register where I was. Then I saw the ring of Rocky Mountain Douglas firs around me, the forked road beyond, the three cleared spaces on the ground.
The spaces where Patrick, Alex, and I had slept that night we’d made it to the top of the pass.
Though I’d taken a different route up the rock face, I’d wound up in the right place after all.
North and down to Stark Peak.
South and up to Lawrenceville.
I took a moment there at the fork, staring up the dirt road winding to the very top of the pass. I cast a glance at the two rectangles in the pine needles that Patrick and Alex had cleared.
If ever absence had been made visible, it was in those patches of dirt where my brother and his girlfriend had slept just last week.
Stepping from the ring of trees, I peeled south up the fork to Lawrenceville. As my legs carried me onward, a pulse beat in my temple. I realized the obvious: I was terrified of what I might find there.
It turns out I wasn’t terrified enough.
ENTRY 34
I moved cautiously up the south fork, weaving through the trees to the side of the road. As I neared Lawrenceville, I came aware of a suctioning noise.
First the smack of some sort of impact. Then a moist yielding.
I froze in my tracks and listened.
A moment later it came again.
Thump. Squelch.
The noise, arriving at regular intervals, drew me through the night like a beacon. It grew louder as I neared the outskirts of town, passing by occasional rickety cabins that had gone to seed when the cannery started busing in workers and the local economy collapsed. It grew louder yet as I came up behind the factory, threading through mud-caked backhoe undercutters and construction rigs parked in clearings among the trees.
Thump. Squelch.
An industrial wasteland nestled in a dip in the landscape, the Lawrenceville Cannery stood out from the surrounding trees even in the darkness, a vast cleared patch of shadow.
Moving from tree to tree, I crept into position above the little valley.
The sounds kept coming, but I could see nothing below.
Thump. Squelch.
Thump. Squelch.
Curiosity burned in me, but fear burned brighter. Whatever those noises were, they weren’t good.
The darkness lifted just enough for me to see the rough shapes of the buildings below. I sensed movement around the facility but couldn’t make out more than that. Dawn threatened at the eastern horizon, the black sky beginning to show blue.
Thump. Squelch.
I could make out only the shapes closest to me. The storage warehouse just below my perch. Beside it a yellow bulldozer bled through the gloom, parked by a roof-high pile of gravel. Rolls of fencing were stacked like Lincoln Logs. Rectangles of sheet metal rose at irregular intervals across the hillside. Construction must have been under way when the Dusting had hit.
Thump. Squelch.
The sky lightened another degree, the parking lot showing just barely through the haze. I sensed movement on it. Hosts on patrol?
Thump. Squelch.
The noise seemed to be coming from the factory itself. The giant building emerged slowly, like a mighty ship from the fog. The huge doors had been rolled back, venting heat from the factory floor. I could sense a bustle of activity inside, but what it was, I couldn’t say. I strained my eyes, trying to see what was going on in there.
Thump. Squelch.
The top of the sun finally broke the horizon, a pinprick of glowing yellow.
I saw through the open doors.
I really wish I hadn’t.
ENTRY 35