Then he saw the rope. It floated on the surface, curved like a water snake.
Sometimes he went boating over on Lake Isabella, waterskiing and drinking beer. They often trailed n
ets full of beers over the side to keep them cool. Maybe . . .
Alex began pulling on the rope. There was definitely something attached, and it was heavy, but it was coming. Hah! A cooler punched full of holes. Water drained out as he hauled it out of the lake. It was heavy, heavier than if it was just beers.
Alex had some trouble untying the rope with just one hand, but his teeth helped. The bicycle chain nearly defeated him, and he almost gave up. But a search of the camp, ignoring as best he could the dead bodies and parts of dead bodies, turned up a crowbar. The crowbar broke the chain lock.
At last he pried open the lid and gasped.
It was a head. Mostly a head. But there was something like a lizard’s tail protruding, whipping back and forth between the pale blue eyes.
The head spit water from its mouth and seemed to be whispering. Looking up at him with cold blue eyes, so like the goddess. This awesome horror had to be a sign from her.
Alex leaned close, pushing past repugnance and fear, to hear a wet, gurgling voice say, “Who the hell are you?”
Computer Jack was next to arrive at Clifftop. Jack hauled the horribly burned, mauled, broken kids with soot-stained faces and bloody clothes, one at a time, up to Lana’s room.
The motor home had broken down, too, and Jack had hauled it with sheer, brute force, pushing from behind, shoving it back onto the road with the incredible strength that had never mattered to him.
In the end they hadn’t been far ahead of the kids who had walked.
One kid had died en route. The rest had cried and wailed and shouted their pain with every lurch and jolt. And all the while Jack had been clenched, waiting for the next attack.
Sanjit ran to get his brothers and sisters to haul water and offer comfort. Sinder did a sort of rough triage, deciding who needed the most immediate help, but Brianna was first, that much was clear. There was a war on, and Brianna was a soldier.
Lana laid her hand on Brianna’s scarred, half-destroyed face, and Brianna cursed feebly.
“What happened, Breeze?” Lana asked while she stretched to also touch a four-year-old whose leg had been burned down to the white bone.
“Gaia,” she said. “The gaiaphage. Trying to kill us all. I—” And that was it for Brianna for a while as her eyes rolled up and she slipped back into the relief of unconsciousness.
Sanjit stepped behind Lana, stuck a cigarette in her mouth, and lit it.
“How many dead?” Lana asked.
Sinder answered, “One of the kids said . . . she said it was all burned down. All the boats, all the vans . . .” Sinder brushed tears from her eyes. “Like more than half the kids up there.”
“Sam?”
“He wasn’t there,” Sinder said.
“Then we’re not beaten yet,” Lana said.
Gaia had dragged herself and her parts away and into a stand of trees. It was all a terrible shock. She had felt pain, terrible pain when Sam had burned her in the battle at Perdido Beach, but she had never before felt such fear. It had never occurred to her that she really had anything to fear from anyone aside from Little Pete.
Weak humans, even mutants, should be no threat to her. The fact that she’d been very nearly destroyed by one girl—one girl!—was disturbing in the extreme. Obviously she had miscalculated. Worse: What did this mean for the outside world?
Could she be defeated? By mere human creatures?
The fear seemed to have the effect of tightening her throat, a strange aspect of having a body. Her body actually reacted in ways other than what her mind dictated. A weakness, that was. Her heart had hammered; her senses had become disoriented; her muscles had tensed. All of that was apparently beyond her control.
And the way the pain twisted her awareness, the way it forced her to pay attention to it, to the pain, and only to the pain. Weakness. There was a downside to having a body.
You see, Nemesis? Is this what you want for yourself? Are you seeing?
Now there was water leaking from her eyes. And where was the stupid Diana? She should be here. Not to mention the food. She had killed dozens and yet she was hungry, driven off before she could renew her energy. That was injustice. It was unfair!