The Hollowing

Chapter 18

"Hey!" Kurt shouted to Mastermind. "Stop being lazy and get down from there. I'm not carrying you too."

The ground shook, and Liam blinked back the waking blurs. When did I get here? He was no longer in the cabin, but on the back of a gardening cart as Kurt dragged it down the mountain. The rusted metal web had been encased with pillows, with an additive blanket on top and below to keep him warm. The sun was full and shining, and the trees were blowing in the wind.

"We got tired of waiting," Buttercup said with a grin, his Dragunov in hand. "Hope you don't mind."

Liam tried to stretch, but found the maneuver not suitable, given the confined cage he'd been trapped in.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"All night and then some," Leah said as she strolled into view, her mascaraed eyes locked with his. She handed him Thirsty. "Here. Drink."

His fingers graced the cold leather of her gloves, and Liam wanted to crawl out of his skin. He took his canteen back skeptically, doing his best to avoid making eye contact with Leah, lest she somehow read his mind and learn about the nightmare he'd just had. He really needed to see another woman in the flesh. Preferably one that wasn't a walking corpse.

Liam downed a mouthful of purified mountain water. "I appreciate this, but you didn't have to go through the effort. You could have just woken me up early if you wanted to save a couple miles."

She chuckled. "'Early?' No, you don't get it. We've been moving all night."

Liam studied the world anew. The mountain they'd been on was far to their backs, and the crumbled asphalt road had been replaced with an overgrown dirt path. Red firs surrounded them where pines had once been. He looked for any sign of recognition and came up short. Just how far have they gone!?

"Why the hell wouldn't you wake me up!?" he exclaimed. "This isn't a marathon. We still have hundreds of bloody miles to travel! What, do you think you'll leg it all in one go? You've thrown our sleep schedules off kilter!"

Leah rolled her eyes. "Rezzers don't sleep, you idiot. Thought you'd noticed by now."

Liam bit back the surprise. Between the shock of returning to a ruined wreck of a world and the stress of his own tribulation, he had only been focused on keeping up with the pace that Leah set, and never questioned why it was so high. That they never carried bedrolls of their own could have been explained as a propensity toward a rugged lifestyle, and never seeing them sleep had been written off as only fulfilling their needs after him. They were better maintained, after all.

He floundered out of the cart and grabbed his backpack from Buttercup before he could suffer another moment of humiliation.

Liam was good at mountaineering. He was very, very good at what he did. Whether it was scaling Kilimanjaro, traversing the Himalayas, surviving the Alps, or enjoying a stroll in the Urals, Liam had conquered them all at some point or other, if not for his show, Survive in Wild, than his own leisure, and he had done so with minimal equipment. Such was the nature of his work, and he had developed enough knowledge to become an aficionado of the craft, always capable of stressing the limits of his own abilities. Even a decade marooned had offered only a minimal challenge for a man of his talents.

But to accomplish the task these creatures had set was nigh impossible. Leah had to be aiming to break fourty miles a day with minimal breaks, minimal food, and no sleep whatsoever. Not even the greatest athlete would be able to keep up with these inhuman measures, not for more than a couple days. The human body was only capable of so much exertion before failing.