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  I stared into my coffee cup, watching the dark liquid for so long it started to look like it was moving. I took an experimental sip. It was delicious. I felt like my body was warming up from the inside. Maybe allowing this man and his daughter to tag along wasn’t going to be so tragic.

  “So it’s just the three of you? Where’s your mother?” Nora asked naively.

  I had spoken too soon.

  I barely glanced at her. “She’s dead.” I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t want to. The hurt was still too fresh and the last thing I wanted was to start weeping in front of a stranger. Besides, it was cold and I didn’t want my top and bottom eyelashes sticking together.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. That’s really rough.” The last word got stuck in her throat. Her intense sadness made me uncomfortable even though I was the one who’d just lost a parent.

  “What about your mom?” I asked in return. I wasn’t really curious, but it felt like the polite thing to do.

  “Oh, uh, she was in Arizona the last time I heard from her. I haven’t seen her in years though. My parents split when I was in high school and she escaped to warmer weather. How did your mom die?”

  I stiffened from the question just as an intense wind gust hit our tent. You didn’t just ask people that. Didn’t this girl have any sense of decorum?

  “You should go back to your tent,” I said. “It might blow away if no one’s in it.”

  “But it’s staked to the ground,” Nora protested.

  “Staked to frozen ground,” I pointed out. “Those metal rods will slip out of place if you just breathe heavy.”

  Nora stood gracefully. “Duly noted,” she clipped. She hadn’t finished her coffee and she struggled between unzipping the tent and balancing her beverage.

  “How the hell do I get out of your tent?” she grumbled. She flashed an apologetic look at my grandmother, still knitting, metal needles clicking together. “Sorry. How the heck do I get out?” she self-corrected.

  I got up and effortlessly unzipped the tent for her. Seriously, who didn’t know how zippers worked?

  “You’re not much of a talker, are you?” she observed, cocking her head to one side.

  I heard my grandma chuckle.

  I scowled. “I can talk just fine.”

  Nora made a humming noise, but thankfully she made no other observations about me. She left our tent and I waited to zip up the door flap until she’d made it back to her own tent. I knew why I’d watched her until she had safely returned to her tent, but I wasn’t about to dwell on it.

  My seat on my sleeping bag was still warm from Nora’s body. My grandmother shook her head and clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  “What?” I demanded. My voice sounded whiney even to my own ears.

  “Would it kill you to be nice?” she sighed.

  “I was being nice!” I protested. “I just saved her tent from being blown away!”

  “Uh huh.” My grandma shook her head again.

  I spent the rest of the day sulking in my tent.

  +++++

  The next day the winds had sufficiently stilled and we were once again able to travel. It turned out to be one of those rare days when the wind didn’t cut you down and the sun actually felt warm on your face. The temperature change helped lift my general dour attitude.

  On a good day, we could travel about 25 to 30 miles. We took periodic breaks to hydrate with snow and for Mr. West and my dad to recalibrate our route with a compass and the map. We traveled single-file or sometimes two-by-two, but we stayed away from paved roads and avoided major cities. Walking on semi-plowed streets and highways would be easier on our tired legs and we’d more easily find supplies if we traveled through towns, but it was also more dangerous. Nora and her father were evidence of that, and my prudent father didn’t think it worth the risk.

  “You want some?” I offered Nora some of my jerky. We had been traveling for a few hours that day and I had periodically been snacking on my supply of venison jerky. My jaw was getting tired from all the chewing, but the dried meat was a nice change of pace from our usual canned-food fare.

  She took a piece of the dried venison, but wrinkled her nose when she bit off an edge. “What’s wrong with this meat? Why is it so salty?” she complained.

  “My grandma salted the meat to make it last longer,” I explained. I tried to not let her attitude get me down. “Jerky has a long shelf-life, but cured meats last even longer.”

  She handed the meat stick back to me. “Thanks, but I’d rather my ankles not swell up from sodium.”

  I shrugged and bit off another plug. “Suit yourself, Cover Girl,” I gnawed around the meaty bite.

  “Cover Girl?”

  “Seriously, who cares about sodium when it’s the end of the world?” I pointed out. “It’s electrolytes. You need it for your muscles.”

  My word choice caused her to visibly stiffen. “The world isn’t ending,” she said curtly. “It’s just changing. It’s evolving.”

  “Right.” I snorted and rolled my eyes. I whipped my head to look at her, but didn’t stop the perpetual churning of my legs. I didn’t want to fall too far behind my father and grandmother. “Because we’re going to somehow evolve enough in the next few years to survive an existence with no heat.”

  Her hands tightened around the straps of her backpack. “That’s not a very attractive attitude.”

  “Well I guess it’s a good thing I’m not trying to attract you,” I retorted. “I’m just being realistic.”

  She pressed her lips together. “No. You’re being an asshole.”

  “Listen, I didn’t ask for you and your dad to join us. We were doing just fine until you got yourselves attacked,” I spat out. So much for my temporary good mood. “Stick to your people, and I’ll stick to mine. I’m not looking for a bestie.”

  Nora opened her mouth to respond, but apparently thinking better of it, made a huffing noise and instead quickened her step, lengthening her strides to hustle ahead of me so we were no longer walking side-by-side. I tried to not let it bother me; it was probably for the best that we walk in a single-file anyway. It made for less of a visible trail that bandits could use to find and ambush us.

  We continued our trek in silence, the only sound being that of our boots breaking through the crunchy snow. I mentally wrestled with my thoughts. I considered apologizing to her for being rude – again – but quickly dismissed the idea. I was just being pragmatic about our situation, I decided, and the sooner Nora West realized how serious the Frost was, the better.

  +++++

  When we stopped for the night, the sky was clear and a nearly full moon hung fat in the sky. The sun might no longer be enough to heat the planet’s surface, but at least the moon was a constant companion.

  Our campfire crackled and spit ash into the night sky. I abandoned my gloves and hat and leaned forward to feel the rare luxury of heat against my naked skin. Having a large fire was risky. Any traveling horde of bandits would be able to spot us from a mile off, even though we were sheltered in the woods.

  “You’re blonde.”

  I turned my head at the sound of Nora’s voice. Once again it was just the two of us around the fire. Our fathers and my grandmother were early sleepers. I liked sleep because it meant my body was finally at rest after nonstop movement for the majority of the day, but I liked soaking up the heat from the campfire even more.

  The fire cast a strange light across Nora’s features. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders so only her face was really visible. After I’d snapped at her, she’d been conspicuously silent the rest of the travel day. The quiet was welcomed from her usual incessant chatter, but I also felt guilty that I’d been rude. My Midwestern civility was slipping the longer we wandered across the countryside.

  I self-consciously ran my hand through my hair and pulled at my long bangs. I could feel they were doing weird things having been trapped under my knit cap for so many consecutive days. “Yeah. I’m blond
e. And you’re annoying. What’s your point?”

  Her face wrinkled like she’d eaten a lemon. “Sorry – it’s just surprising for some reason. I’ve never seen you without a hat on and I don’t know why I assumed you were brunette.”

  “My eyebrows are blonde,” I pointed out.

  She shrugged and absently poked a stout stick into the fire. Another plume of red ash spit into the sky. “I guess I didn’t look that closely.”

  Everyone in my family, except my mother, had pale blond hair and eyebrows, clear icy blue eyes, and pale skin that turned a healthy, ruddy color in the cold winter months. We were Scandinavian by blood and proud of that. My mother was darker – a European mutt, German and English and some others. I had inherited my father’s features, not her dark brown hair and hazel eyes.

  I looked away from Nora and into the fire. “I’m sorry if I was mean earlier.” I blinked a few times when my eyes started to feel dry. “I just don’t think it does any good to pretend that things are going to get any easier.”

  “I’m not pretending,” she mumbled over the continuous crackle of the fire. “Do you want me to just give up? To be fatalistic like you?”

  I felt the anger flare inside me. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” I growled. “Don’t pretend to know me or my family or our situation.”

  She tossed the blanket down, whipping it away from her face. “You’re not the only one who’s lost loved ones. You’re not special, so stop acting like the world’s been unfairly targeting you.”

  “Bandits killed my mother,” I snarled. There. I’d said it.

  Nora didn’t flinch. “They killed mine, too.”

  “You said she was in Arizona.” I couldn’t identify the emotion pressing down on me. I was still angry, but there was something else mixed in.

  She shrugged delicately. “I lied.”

  I heard the sound of a zipper unfastening. My grandma poked her head out of the tent we shared. “Is everything okay out there?” Her normally sharp voice sounded tired and thin.

  “We’re fine, Grandma,” I told her.

  She looked back and forth between our faces, looking for I didn’t know what, but eventually she looked satisfied and ducked back inside our tent, zipping it closed.

  I stood up and kicked snow onto the fire. A giant black cloud of smoke rolled off the charred logs.

  “I didn’t say I was done with the fire,” Nora complained, jumping to her feet as well.

  I snapped my eyes to her face and gave her what I hoped was an icy stare as chilled as the late night wind. “You’re done with the fire.”

  She made a disgruntled noise. “God, why are you such a child?” She grabbed her discarded blanket and stormed off in the direction of her tent. Almost immediately the tiny purr of her air pump’s motor sputtered to life. The noise droned on for a few minutes, but I noticed that as time passed, the sound – close to that of a hair dryer – became weaker. Finally, it stopped entirely.

  “No. No, no, no,” came Nora’s panicked voice from inside her tent.

  I heard the sound of items smashing together and I could almost picture her hitting the mechanized air pump against the ground, trying to resuscitate it. The zipper on her tent’s front flap was unceremoniously yanked open and she re-appeared. The annoyance was written all over her face, but when she caught me staring at her, she seemed to put on an unaffected mask as if she didn’t want me to know she was upset.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, even though I knew what had happened.

  “The batteries in my air compressor died.”

  I choked back my laughter. The way her mouth was drawn back in a thin line indicated she didn’t find this as funny as I did.

  “I don’t suppose you have a 9-volt battery handy,” she said, straight-faced.

  I shook my head. “Sorry, no.”

  Her face remained stoical. “Thanks anyway.”

  “The ground’s not so bad,” I said unhelpfully. “Or, at least you get used to it.”

  “I’ll figure something else out,” she said stiffly. I didn’t see her for the rest of the night.

  I stayed outside of my tent for a little longer, watching the fire finally sizzle out. Nora’s pronouncement that her mother had been killed by bandits had not fallen on deaf ears. I knew this wouldn’t be the end of our conversation about our mutual loss, and I dreaded it. I’d finally said the words out loud. My mother had been killed. My mother was dead. And now I would have to live with that realization. I sat in the darkness until my face started to go numb.

  +++++

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next morning came too early. I could hear voices, men’s voices, coming from outside of my tent. Next to me my grandmother snored soundly, so I wiggled out of my sleeping bag as unobtrusively as possible so she can continue to sleep. Outside of the shelter of the tent the sun was bright, blinding really, as it bounced off the snow that constantly surrounded us. I really needed to find some sunglasses. My father and Mr. West were already up and there was a fire lit in the place where I’d prematurely snuffed the previous night’s campfire.

  The memory of my immaturity nagged at me. I didn’t know what it was about Nora West that brought out the worst in me. She was attractive and that made me uncomfortable, and she was awfully inept at survival-type skills, but there was no reason for me to be so rude. I mentally promised myself to make an effort to be more mature in the future. We were going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks.

  By the time Nora dragged herself out of her tent, the fire was fully formed and I was melting snow for drinking water. Our fathers had left me in charge while they checked the traps my dad had set out the previous night. Frozen water was all around us, but it was nice to be able to start the morning with a full liquid glass of water to fill your hollow belly. It also helped us to not ravenously devour the rest of our food rations.

  “Morning,” I greeted her, mindful of the silent promise I’d made to myself to be nicer. “How’d you sleep?” I already knew the answer by the look of her eyes. Dark circles were visible under her vibrant aquamarine irises.

  “Like crap,” she complained. She pulled her ski cap on over sleep-tussled locks. “Is there anymore coffee? I’m going to need a jump-start this morning.”

  “I’m making water right now,” I said, poking at the copper kettle sitting in the hottest part of the fire. “It’ll be a few minutes though. I don’t have a fancy solar-powered hot plate like you.”

  “I wish I would have thought about a solar-powered air compressor,” she openly complained. “I don’t know why it died so quickly. The batteries were brand new.”

  “Cold temperatures decrease battery life,” I said. “You should keep your batteries in your sleeping bag with you at night.”

  “Oh.” Her pretty features crinkled in thought. “You don't suppose we’ll be stopping at a store soon so I can get more batteries?”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I snorted. The way she’d phrased her question made it sound like a routine errand to Costco. “My dad's philosophy is to stay as far away from cities as possible.”

  “But we’ve got to replenish our supplies sometime, right?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “Besides, nothing guarantees that bandits haven’t already looted every store we come across. It’s safer to stay away.”

  “We’re going to die,” Nora said stubbornly.

  “We’ve got all the water we could ever want,” I pointed out, “and we can hunt. My dad has small animal traps. That's where they are right now – checking on the traps he set out last night.” I didn’t like my dad’s plan any more than Nora did, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  She sat down heavily next to me, looking sour. I regarded her out of the corner of my eye. She seemed to be massaging the lower half of her face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not that you actually care.” She made a pained face. “My jaw hurts,” she complained. “I was blowing
up my air mattress most of the night. It kept deflating. I think it has a leak.”

  “Your breath is different from the air that comes from an air compressor.” I grabbed the handle of the copper pot with a gloved hand and shook the kettle, slurring around the slowly melting snow. “The moisture in your breath is warm and when it cools, the molecules shrink, causing the air mattress to deflate, too.”

  Nora blinked a few times as she stared silently at me. “How do you know that stuff?”

  I shrugged and kept stirring up the fire, shifting hunks of dead wood to make the fire burn hotter and faster. “It’s common sense,” I said. “It’s not that hard to figure out.”

  “There’s no such thing as common sense,” Nora argued.

  Despite my vow to be nicer, she was quickly chipping away at my resolve. “Do you argue just to hear the sound of your own voice?”

  “No,” she scoffed. “I just think the phrase ‘common sense’ is overused.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said drolly.

  “How do you and your grandma manage to sleep on the ground without an air mattress?” Nora asked. “Isn’t it cold?”

  “I have a sleeping pad. It’s like sleeping on a roll of insulation without all that itchy pink fiberglass. I’ve also got a liner inside my sleeping bag, which is already rated for negative ten degrees Fahrenheit. The liner adds another ten degrees of warmth.”

  She stared at me for so long that I started to become self-conscious. “What?” I said, annoyance creeping into my tone. I shoved my hat back a little on my forehead.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that I think this is the most you’ve ever said to me in one sitting.”

  I looked away from her and stared into the fire. “Yeah, well…” I cleared my throat, “don’t get used to it.”

  +++++

  Traveling that day was miserable. It was cold. Freezing. Possibly the coldest day to hit us since leaving Williston. The sun refused to budge from behind a giant cloudbank, and I worried if this was the new normal to which we’d have to adjust.