We finally depart, eleven of us, in two Humvees. After all her bluster about preserving fuel, Kim clearly wants her son to travel in style and comfort. He and two of his friends are outfitted with the best in military accessories the base can come up with: Kevlar body armor, helmet-mounted cameras to record the mission, and weapons, of course.
Topher, in an improvised uniform, rides in silence, his crossbow on his lap, a rifle tucked beside him. My weapons are holstered as I’ve been instructed, even though it’s uncomfortable to sit like this. “Too many inexperienced soldiers fumble their weapons from surprise,” Liam tells me, like he’s been in a battle before. “I doubt the Nahx would give you a chance to pick them up. And I don’t think your whole Jackie Chan thing will help you either.” He’s goading me, but I don’t take the bait. I need to focus on staying alive.
See a Nahx, draw my weapon, fire. Neck, shoulder, or hip joints. Chest, back, and head are bulletproof, unless you have armor-piercing bullets, which we don’t. The videos taught us this. Shoot first, yell second, think later, Topher says, like that’s an easy choice to make. “Code Black” is the warning call we’ve agreed on. The likely scenario is that if you have to use it, they will be your last two words.
The journey is slow, through remote roads piled with snow and abandoned cars, but surprisingly uneventful. We encounter no Nahx, but see enough evidence of their handiwork to fuel nightmares for a hundred people. Death is everywhere. Every rest stop, every town is littered with bodies, most in a perfect state of preservation. There is some decay, a few babies in strollers, for example, and dogs on leashes, frozen and starved. Some adults and older children too, who died in other ways. We see broken necks, smashed skulls, and some bodies that are so decayed the cause of death is unknown.
Rather than pitch our winter tents the first night, we all curl up in the Humvees, trembling, and not just from the cold.
We arrive at the city limits around midnight on the second day. Lookouts spotted Nahx transports hovering and landing at dusk, taking off an hour later. So we linger out of sight and approach from the opposite direction, setting up a rough camp inside an abandoned barn. We eat, and draw straws on who gets to take watch. Whoever it is won’t get any sleep at all, since Liam wants to move out at dawn. My luck is bad and good. I draw one short straw, but Sawyer draws the other.
Liam won’t let us use the cameras.
The frigid night air washes over me as the others bed down. I shiver, zipping up my jacket and pulling on a knitted hat, gathering my gun and knife in their holsters. I buckle them into place, then slip on my gloves. Sawyer and I begin our watch, heading in opposite directions around the barn.
We pace, passing each other every few minutes. Sawyer nods a greeting each time. When this gets boring, he begins telling long meandering jokes, one line at a time. I have to stifle a laugh each time he gets to the punch line, even though I can hardly remember the beginning of the joke. Eventually, he runs out of jokes, and we continue the watch in silence.
My mind drifts here and there as I trudge through snow. I think of my parents again. They might have survived. I have no way of contacting them unless we get to some kind of proper communication. Not for the first time, I try to imagine what they are going through. It’s something a therapist once told me I should do. Imagine how your parents feel when you do these things, she said about the fighting and the drugs and the staying out all night with questionable boys. Imagine how worried they are.
As I walk, I have a quiet moment to think about that. There never really was that much fighting outside the dojo. And the drugs were only ever a bit of weed. And how questionable were the handsome twin sons of a nice doctor? It’s possible all the other things the court-mandated therapist said to me were bullshit too. ADHD. Attachment disorder. Anger issues—labels every therapist loves to slap on someone who looks like me.
Argumentative I’ll concede was pretty accurate. As for the rest, maybe no one ever really knew me, not even my parents. I did try to imagine their worry, but all I ever saw was disappointment that I would never be like them—a beloved English teacher and a respected Métis activist. But maybe I imagined the disappointment, too.
It’s hard to imagine people when you are not sure they’re alive. In a way, it’s easier to imagine those who are certainly dead. I think of Tucker in his grave, and Felix and Lochie lying dead in the churchyard. I pass Sawyer, who pretends to be a zombie. I think of Topher in his sleeping bag, with Xander snuffling beside him. I’m so cold and tired I’m tempted to crawl between them and fall asleep. The next time I pass Sawyer, I’m laughing to myself about how pitiful I am. He yawns and walks on.
The yawn is catching. Suddenly, my eyes feel heavy, sticky, like they are adhered to my eyeballs with Krazy Glue. I take a deep breath of the cold night air and try to wake up. The air smells of hay, and a little horsey from the barn. There’s also a faint burnt smell, like charcoal, perhaps coming from the burned-out house.
Smell is a powerful memory, I’ve heard. The most powerful. With that little whiff of charcoal, the Nahx in the trailer floats into my head again. My wrists ache, and my heart aches, and my mind churns like a storm. I feel like there is something important about what happened, but I can’t quite grasp it. I stop, listening. I can hear Sawyer’s trudging footsteps around the other side of the barn. Closing my eyes, I remember the plodding gait of the Nahx rocking as he carried me. I don’t remember being picked up or set down, but I have a slip of a memory of being carried, of looking up at his shadowed shape, with the stars behind it. He was tall, straight backed, and warm. I remember the warmth.
When I open my eyes, he’s there.
A barely visible shadow lingers in the dark by the burned-out house, looking right at me, a night-armored Nahx invader standing twenty feet away.
I’m paralyzed. Code Black, my mind shrieks, but nothing comes out of my mouth. I reach for my weapons, my lungs trying to take in enough breath to scream. When my gun sticks in the holster, I glance down to free it, and when I look back up, the Nahx is gone.
“Rave?” I spin around, both weapons raised. It’s Sawyer, standing there, a horse blanket slung over his shoulders. “Whoa, it’s me. Sawyer.”
Finally I gasp, as my breath catches up to my galloping heart. I must look wild, because Sawyer raises his hands and steps slowly forward. “It’s okay. It’s me.”
“There was a N-Nahx,” I stammer, pointing back with my pistol. “Right there. Standing right there.”
Sawyer frowns and looks over my shoulder, taking another step toward me. “Holster your weapons, please,” he says in a firm tone, and I do so, dazed. Sawyer reaches out and touches my shoulder. His firm grip brings me back to my senses.
“There’s nothing there,” Sawyer says, letting go of my shoulder. “If there had been a Nahx there, you would be dead. So would I.”
“I saw it,” I say.