I escorted Dawn-Marie over to my carrier. She was as good as her word and didn’t try anything stupid, but I didn’t entirely trust her. Not because I thought that she might be loyal to the Eden tribe - her story about being kept in an open prison under the watchful eye of Sunray’s people made perfect sense. She just wasn’t one of us. She hadn’t fought for her life alongside my team for the past six months. She was an outsider, and nobody trusts an outsider that easily.
I spotted Sid walking back from an area of dead wood a few meters behind our carrier. In one hand was a shovel and in the other was a roll of toilet paper. I was just about to rag on him for taking a dump without someone providing cover when he flashed an angry look my way.
“She’s riding with us, huh?” he said it more as a statement than a question. Dawn-Marie climbed into the carrier and the armored door closed with a dull thunk.
“She’s got information on what we’re up against here, Sid. That .50 Cal back in Dinsmore? There’s a military unit running Eden. The commander uses the term Sunray.”
I briefed Sid on everything there was to know about Sunray and how Eden had come to be, but from the look on his face I could tell he was quite prepared to drop Dawn-Marie off in the first creep-infested community we could find.
He slipped the shovel underneath a tie-down on the side of the carrier and then lit a cigarette, cupping the burning end with his hands as he took a deep haul.
“I voted for you to lead this thing, Dave. But I’m not backing you on that chick. She needs to go … at first light. When we pull out of here, just drop her off on the side of the road. We can’t trust her, man. She’s not one of us.”
The last thing I needed was to get into an argument with Sid Toomey. While I sympathized with Dawn-Marie’s story of being trapped in Eden, we needed her about as much as she needed us and what we needed more than anything was information. Dawn-Marie could give us an edge.
“Look … Sid, it’s complicated but the reasons for keeping her with us are tactically sound at this point. I need you to back me up on this, okay?”
He took another haul on his cigarette and said, “I don’t like it. You sure you’re not slipping because you sure as fuck screwed up getting us swarmed by the creeps back in Airdrie. I didn’t say anything about it then.”
I clenched my fists tightly and stuffed them in the pockets of my combat jacket.
“Yeah, Sid … I made a mistake,” I whispered but you could hear the anger in my voice. “It won’t happen again.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Bringing along that chick is a mistake from where I’m standing and want to know something?”
“What?”
He stubbed his cigarette on the hull of the carrier and said, “If I feel that way, there will be others who feel the same.”
I sighed heavily as I tapped the rear door with the butt of my carbine. Dawson opened it up and I climbed inside with Sid in tow.
Sid might have been right about Dawn-Marie and I scanned the faces of my team to gauge their reaction to her presence in the carrier. Everyone carried a blank expression and had I been playing poker with them, I would have been in a world of hurt.
I briefed Dawson and Doug Manybears in the crew commander’s hatch so that we were out of earshot from Dawn-Marie. Doug was practical - he recognized Dawn-Marie’s strategic value. She was a farm girl, while the rest of us were city-dwellers. Sure, we each possessed some field craft abilities, but none of us knew the first thing about where to scrounge for supplies on a farm, and, as he pointed out, we didn’t even know what kinds of farm equipment operated on diesel versus gasoline. Dawn-Marie could show us what to look for, she was familiar with the area and, the most important factor was that she had knowledge of Sunray’s assets. She knew what we were up against.
Kate took the middle ground – probably so Sid wouldn’t feel his opinion was being ignored. The giant Newfoundlander had always adopted an act first, think later mindset, and Kate Dawson was the only person who could reel him in.
I finished my briefing and Sid took the first sentry shift in the turret. I was about to crawl across the floor of the crew commander’s hatch to catch some shut-eye when Jo tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey, kiddo, you should be sleeping. What’s up?”
Jo’s eyes narrowed sharply as she hopped onto the crew seat. “I stayed awake because I want to talk about something that’s important.”
I blinked. “Um … okay. You have my undivided attention.”
Jo squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I’m part of this team, David, and I want be more like everyone else. I’ve been a helper since we left the city but I can do other stuff, too.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah? Like what?”
She pointed to my binoculars hanging against the hull. “Well, I’m a good lookout. I can spot creepers from a mile away, plus I’m a good listener. I hear every word you guys say about what we’re up against. And I heard everything about Dawn-Marie. I’ve been keeping an eye on her, you know.”
I leaned forward. “We all have to keep an eye on her. Do you think we can trust her?”
Jo shook her head. “I don’t think she’s one of the bad guys, but that’s cuz we don’t know her yet so nobody trusts her. And you want to know something?”
“What’s that?”
She dug a finger into my chest. “You don’t trust me either, David. You think it’s all about protecting me, but we protect each other and I can help … I want to help. I’m a good shot, I’m small and fast plus a bunch of other stuff that you’re too busy to even notice. You need to let me do more – I don’t want to be the little kid anymore.”
I took Jo’s hands in mine and said, “But, Jo … you are a little kid. You’re just eight years old.”
She pulled away and then fired me an angry glare. “I’m nine in a couple of months and I can shoot better than Kenny or Doug. I’ve shot creepers, lots of them. I’ve seen just as much scary stuff as you and I can do more to help us get to where we’re going. So are you going to give me more to do or are you going to treat me like a baby forever?”
I wasn’t expecting to get an earful from my kid sister but she was dead serious about wanting to be a part of the team. It took guts on her part to talk to me about it but all I could see as I listened to Jo plead her case was the bodies of that family back in Neapolis. If I agreed to let Jo become a full-fledged team member then it meant that I couldn’t protect her. I studied her face as I considered the reality of our situation. We’d been attacked, twice. Our carrier could have been destroyed and we could all wind up dead if I screwed up again. Jo was on the receiving end of that .50 Caliber machine gun just like the rest of us. If we brewed up, she’d burn to death and there would be nothing I could do about it. And the entire world was still filled with monsters that would rip her tiny body to shreds if she wound up getting swarmed – if we couldn’t escape them.
I sighed heavily and gave Jo a slight nod. “You make a good case, kiddo. I promise to let you help out more but there’s still a ton of stuff you need to learn about field craft and fighting.”
She snorted. “There’s a ton of stuff you need to learn too. Okay … well at least you’re listening to me. I’m going to get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow night I can go on sentry?”
I threw her a half-smile. “Yeah, Jo … maybe tomorrow night. I’ll talk to Cruze about it, okay?”
Jo gave me a massive hug and said, “Okay then. Goodnight, David.”
***
It was shortly past one in the morning when Cruze appeared at the rear of my APC, carrying a rubber groundsheet in one hand and her carbine in the other. I climbed out, along with Dawn-Marie. It was time to figure out our next move. I closed the carrier door, and then knelt down on the ground. Tiny flecks of snow were falling and the grass was covered with frost. Cruze threw her groundsheet over us to block out the light as we prepared to study the map.
“We’re far enough off the grid road that we won’t leave any tire tracks,” Cruze said, pointing to our location. “When these patrols show up, they’re sticking to the roads - they’re not driving cross country, are they?”
Dawn-Marie nodded. “That’s right. They’ve got the area covered pretty well, and they know what kinds of things are going to attract scroungers – mostly food and fuel.”
I made a note of our position and then ran my finger along a grid line running due east. “Do you have any idea how much territory Sunray has claimed?”
She shook her head, her eyes fixed firmly on the map. “Not a clue. We’d asked our handlers, but they were tight-lipped about it.”
“We have a couple of options here, Dave,” Cruze whispered. “We can keep pushing on due east to Morrin, but I’m not crazy about fording the Red Deer River – it’s pretty deep. We’d also use a ton of fuel while we’re in the water depending on how strong the current is. The other option is to head northwest, but that presents problems too.”
I noted the location of Morrin on the map and followed the Red Deer River to the northwest. Cruze was right; it was a huge natural obstacle, and it would offer a defender any number of ambush positions.
It looks like a thick green strip on the map, but the Tolman Badlands natural area is pristine forest, complete with bears, wolves and of course the badlands itself. Full of dry sedimentary rocks and eroded clay-rich soil, the ground resembles volcanic rock in many places - there are coulees and hoodoos, too. Once upon a time, tourists flocked to the fossil-rich town of Drumheller, away to the south - Drumheller was home to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, and every person in Alberta under the age of forty had done a school field trip to visit.
The badlands just sort of appear out of nowhere. You’re driving across flat fertile farmland and then suddenly you’re heading down a massive hill and the landscape is instantly transformed like you’ve taken a trip in a time machine. It’s as if God stuck a blunt knife into the land and carved out a jagged strip about two hundred miles long, just to see what it would look like.
It’s pretty much impossible to drive cross country through the badlands: you have to stick to roads that cling to the coulee walls, and, if your brakes ever fail, you’re as good as dead. Any reasonably intelligent tactician would set up a defensive position on either side of those walls. There are no escape routes on the roadway - it’s either up or down. If you drive a vehicle on the shoulder, you’ll wind up rolling into the ravine below.
My first instinct was to figure out an alternate route, but there were only two roads crossing through the badlands; Highway 585, outside of Trochu to our north, and Highway 27, that drove straight east into Morrin.
“We have like … zero options here, Cruze,” I said. “We don’t have enough fuel to go bombing around from town to town looking for a fill.”
“There are farms along the way,” Dawn-Marie said. “They would likely be secured by military elements. The ones that were abandoned will have probably been stripped clean by now.”
It was time to make a decision. What would be the lesser of two evils - moving straight east along Highway 27 or cutting northeast through Trochu? If Sunray’s people had somehow managed to clean the village of creeps, they’d hear our vehicles coming from miles away.
I folded up the map and handed it to Cruze. “Screw it … we’re going to continue heading east,” I said, trying to sound decisive. “We’ll cross the river along highway 27 and go the Morrin route. How much fuel do you have left?”
“The tank is full and we’ve got two Jerry cans in reserve. That’ll buy us about another couple of hundred kilometers before we have to refuel.”
I nodded. “I’m about the same. Highway 27 is paved – we could bring the carriers up to 90 km/hr and make up some time. If we don’t run into any opposition, we could pull into Hanna by lunchtime, and maybe make the border by nightfall.”
“That’s optimistic,” said Cruze, as she turned her attention back to Dawn-Marie. “Do you know how to fire a weapon?”
She gave Cruze a sour look. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last six months, sitting on my ass? Of course I know how to fire a weapon.”
Cruze nodded. “Good … because if we get into a fire fight, it’ll be a lot like the last one.”
“Unless you drive into Sunray’s people in some kind of formation or something.”
“What Cruze wants to know is whether or not you realize you’re going to be shooting your own people,” I said, matching Cruze’s tone. “Actually, scratch that – if we give you a weapon there’ll be a full scale mutiny on our hands because everyone here trusts you about as far as they can throw you. For the time being, you’ll help out in my carrier.”
Cruze cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure, Dave? It’s just Melanie in the back of Ark Two, we’ve got the room.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to send Jo over your way again. She’s been stuck inside these rolling sardine cans for more than two days now and she gave me an earful about being treated like a baby. She wants to help out more, so here’s her chance to prove herself. We’ll go hatches up at first light and you can use her as a lookout. Make sure Mel keeps an eye on her.”
“We’ll all keep an eye on her,” said Cruze, shining the red light onto her watch. “It’s one thirty – let’s get some kip because it’s going to be a long day.”
***
When everyone in my carrier woke up, I was as blunt as possible; I wanted my team focused on the threat facing us. We were dealing with remnants of an infantry unit, and only vigilance would give us any kind of edge.
Jo was excited about her temporary transfer over to Cruze’s team. She’d asked for more responsibility and this was her chance to prove to everyone that she could contribute something beyond taking care of bullets and beans. She scurried over to Ark Two just as the early morning light was beginning to filter through the dense poplar and diamond willow inside our hide.
After 15 minutes of vehicle maintenance, Doug Manybears started up the carrier and the engine roared to life on the very first try. I did a quick radio check and ordered Ark Two onto another frequency, deciding we’d change radio frequencies every six hours in case Sunray had a command post somewhere that might be listening in. Gulping back a steaming hot cup of instant coffee, I climbed into my crew commander’s hatch. My stomach groaned a couple of times to remind me I needed to eat something, but my nerves were on edge, giving me a slight feeling of nausea. I did manage to eat a granola bar and keep it down. That had to count for something.
We pulled out of the hide at three minutes past six. It had snowed since my meeting with Cruze and Dawn-Marie, not enough to get us stuck in a drift, but more than enough to leave tire tracks all over the place. But we were going to be on the highway in a few minutes and that meant we’d have a smooth ride for the first time in three days.
We kept a watchful eye on the west side of Highway 27 as it cut a path across the seemingly unending flat land, stretching as far as the eye could see. In the distance we spotted thin black smudges of smoke on the horizon – probably coming from what used to be the city of Red Deer. I wondered for a moment how many other refugees had left their hiding places, and were now making their own journeys to unknown destinations. Winter was officially five weeks away, but anyone who lives on the prairie knows that we’re lucky if we make it to the end of November before the biting cold arrives like an unwanted guest. The wind chill can freeze your exposed skin in less than five minutes, and that’s after the cold has stolen the breath from your lungs as you bundle up and try like hell not to freeze to death.
But then again, winter coming meant the creeps would freeze solid and I shivered as I considered the possibilities of facing a fully armed military unit. The last thing I wanted was for us to face off against Sunray. We needed to remain vigilant and use our heads if we were going to stay under his radar, but for that we needed more information. Unfortunately, Dawn-Marie wasn’t going to be of use there. Her knowledge was limited to Dinsmore and a few scattered farms on land gone fallow. No, what we needed was good, old fashioned intelligence, and that meant only one thing: patrolling. Stealth, the cover of darkness and boots on the ground were the best way for our group to learn about what we were up against.
Our carrier crawled into a deep gully alongside the highway, and then edged up the shoulder until the nose was level with the pavement. Sid’s guns were in the rear position, and he quickly moved his turret into his arc of fire as I watched Cruze’s carrier follow our tracks on the snow-covered pavement. A sharp wind blew in from the south, creating miniature snow drifts no more than a few centimeters deep. Our tires ploughed through them, kicking up a blinding cloud of powder to our rear which I’m sure pissed off Kenny Howard no end. I watched as he increased his distance between us to three vehicle lengths and gave Cruze a thumbs-up.
Kate Dawson had covered her head and face with a combat scarf - she looked like was wearing a Niqab. She scanned the area north of us for movement. Ahead lay at least 30 km of highway before the flat dry prairie disappeared into a deep coulee. I hoped the bridge over the river was still there.
Sunray wouldn’t destroy a bridge, would he?
I hailed Cruze on the radio. “Ark Two, how’s your team?”
“We’re good,” she answered. “The thermometer on my watch says that it’s about minus five outside.”
“Feels more like minus fifteen with the wind,” I replied. “We’re going to have to alter our plans before we head into our destination.”
“Say again?”
“I’ll fill you in when we get closer – I don’t want to talk about this over the radio.”
“Roger that,” said Cruze.
We pressed on, the APC’s rumbling across the snow-covered highway. Dawn-Marie stood opposite Kate Dawson, using the turret as a wind break. She was shrouded in Jo’s poncho liner, but I could have sworn that her lips were turning blue. It wasn’t even seriously that cold yet.
I hailed Dawson on the intercom. “Your partner in crime looks to be freezing to death. Have her go hatches down if she needs to warm up.”
“There’s lots of good heat blowing back from the engine cover,” she answered back. “I might have to throw on a bikini or something.”
Doug Manybears voice filled my headset. “Are bikinis allowed after the end of the world? I need to keep my mind on something else - where we are right now feels like a desert. But that’s got me thinking about sand, which got me thinking about the beach and bikinis again. Now I’m thinking about naked ladies. Thanks, Dawson. I’m now thinking about smut at the end of the world.”
“You think too much,” Sid cut in. His voice was as hard as granite. “Think less, drive more.”
I could see Doug’s helmet-covered head shaking back and forth in the driver’s hatch so I leaned across the hull and shouted in his ear.
“I think about bikinis every single day when I’m not thinking about getting eaten alive! If your brain is coming up with visions of half-naked ladies, that’s a healthy sign.”
“All Sid thinks about is bashing creeps with The Eradicator!” he shouted back. “Half the time I wonder if he even likes girls. He sure as hell doesn’t like the new chick.”
I patted Doug on the shoulder and glanced back. Dawn-Marie had moved to the other side of the carrier and was now enjoying the warmth from the engine blowing onto her face. She threw me a small wave and for the first time since Dinsmore, she looked more relaxed.
I would have waved back, but I could feel Sid glaring at me. Instead, I just offered a small nod, and then turned my attention back to the road ahead. We pushed on for another forty minutes and I was struck by how little the land changed. It was as if we were in a cartoon where the animators keep using the same backgrounds, over and over again. Not a house or a barn to be seen in any direction, though we did pass a number of oil pumps, dotting the land like giant metallic insects.
In better times they’d have been pumping raw crude out of the ground to be shipped to the refinery at Bowden. That was the extent of my knowledge about the oil industry, though I did wonder whether Sunray had seized the refinery when he moved in from Wainwright. There would be plenty of oil in its giant storage tanks.
I was dead tired, and hadn’t slept more than two hours in the last day. The cold wind numbed my skin, to the point where I thought my entire head had been filled with Novocain. I was actually daydreaming - when I realized that I’d dropped my guard, I gave my face a good hard slap. It rattled me back into the present just in time to see a small rise on the horizon in front of us. I tapped Doug on the shoulder and motioned for him to slow the carrier down to a crawl, and then I dropped back into my hatch and grabbed my binoculars.
I stood up high in my crew commander’s hatch as the APC dropped to a walking speed, and peered out at the tiny ridge. I could make out the tops of poplar trees on either side of the highway and a few thin tendrils of smoke rising into the flat, grey sky.
“Ark Two, contact … wait out,” I said, trying to contain the knot of fear that had been growing ever since we crossed over into Eden. I pulled out my map and followed the contour lines showing the ridge to where I thought our position was on the highway. We were no more than 5km away, and if there were any of Sunray’s assets in that ridge, they’d have seen us coming for miles. I quickly glanced to both sides of the road for a place we could conceal our carriers if they decided to start shooting. Outside of the cattle fencing that had been following us ever since we left our hide, there were no man-made structures. What’s worse, there was no low ground either. We were positioned on a stretch of road in an endless sea of flat, open country. It was an armored commander’s dream for a battle run with tanks going full throttle, but it was a nightmare waiting to happen for a pair of APC’s manned by people who weren’t even of legal drinking age.
I tapped Doug on the shoulder and pointed to the ditch on the side of the road, and we crawled down off the snow-covered pavement. Glancing over the rear of the hull, I saw Cruze’s carrier following closely behind, then looked up at Sid in the turret and pointed to my eyes. He nodded once, understanding I wanted him to keep his guns aimed at wherever the smoke was coming from. I dropped down into the back of the carrier and crawled over to the rear doors. Kate Dawson gave me a worried look.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Probably not,” I replied, as I flipped the combat lock and then tugged on Dawn-Marie’s pant leg. “Scan the area for any vehicles or people out there.”
“Roger that,” she said, as she stood up in her hatch, her carbine resting against her shoulder.
Dawn-Marie dropped back down inside the carrier as I opened one of the rear doors. “What is it?” she asked. “How come we’re stopping?”
I gestured for her to come to the rear of the carrier as Cruze jumped off the nose of Ark Two, landing a few feet away.
“Did you see the smoke up ahead?” I asked.
Cruze nodded. “Yeah … I spotted it just after you gave your contact report on the radio.”
“What do you think?”
Cruze pulled out her map and unfolded it across the jump seat. She pointed to the ridge and then to where she guessed our position to be. “I think we’re about three clicks from the ridge. Out of range for pretty much all small arms ammunition or even an eighty-four millimeter round.”
“But not too far away for a TOW missile,” I said grimly.
“If they had a TOW, they’d have used it by now. We’re well within the 4000m range.”
Dawn-Marie blinked. “Um … what’s a TOW missile?”
“Tube launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided missile system,” said Cruze and I said in unison.
Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? They might have missiles?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. If Sunray came from Wainwright he’d have access to anti-armor weapons systems. Whether or not any of his people could hit the broad side of a barn with one is another story. But it’s possible he could have them.”
“Jesus.”
“Have you been down this highway before?” asked Cruze.
“Yeah, lots of times,” Dawn-Marie replied. “That ridge ahead is the starting point for a big freaking hill that curves down into the coulee. The bridge over the Red Deer River is maybe 3km down from the top of the hill. It’s all badlands down there – you have to stay on the road, because the ground eats anything with wheels.”
I moved to the left side of the carrier and peered out with my binoculars again. “Two fires are burning in there somewhere … I can’t tell if it’s on the forward side of the river or the opposite bank. It all looks the same from here.”
I handed the binoculars to Dawn-Marie and gazed out on the horizon. Through the corner of my eye I could see Sid Toomey glaring at me from the turret.
“Fuck, Dave, you’re freaking whipped and you haven’t even seen her boobs up close yet!’
I ground my teeth and was just about to climb back into the carrier when Dawson hopped up on the hull and drove her boot into Sid’s shoulder.
“Shut the hell up and keep your head in the game, Sid!” she barked.
“She’s a liability, Kate!” he snapped. “Who the hell does this chick think she is, helping Dave and Cruze figure out what’s best for the rest of us?”
Dawson leaned into the turret and grabbed Sid by the collar.
“We live or fucking die as a team, asshole!” she barked, shaking the giant Newfoundlander with no shortage of effort. “Now do your job and-“
A whip-cracking sound filled the air, and I looked up in time to see the top of Kate Dawson’s head explode in a mist of blood and brain matter. The force of the sniper’s round sent her tumbling over the right side of the carrier, to land in the snow with a hard thump.
“NO!” I screamed as I raced around the rear door, but I knew she was dead before she hit the ground. I dropped to my knees and started pounding the earth with my fists. “NO! NO! NO! NO!”
Through a stinging film of tears I gazed down at Kate’s eyes, staring up at the cold empty sky as the snow underneath her head turned from white to crimson.
Kate was gone.