The sound of a distant shot made her suck in a surprised breath.
It was far away.
As she was still processing, the shot was followed by two more quick shots. She turned her head.
Jacob said what she was thinking.
“That’s the direction of Circle Poke,” he said.
Madelyn blinked and rolled to her side. She studied him in the starlight. He was sitting right there, holding the rifle. He was exactly where he should be, and exactly where he wasn’t the last time she had looked.
“How do you know?” she asked. She cleared her scratchy throat. The night air had been hard on her old body.
“I have seen maps,” he said. “And I heard what Gabriel said about where he was camped.”
“Where were you?”
“When?”
“When I was talking to Gabe.”
“You told me to hide. I slipped over the side and hid behind the cabin. I thought you knew.”
“And how did you get back up here?”
“The ladder!” he said with a laugh. “What did you think?”
“Why have you been lying to me?”
“What? I haven’t… What do you think I’ve been lying about?”
“You knew they were gone, didn’t you? You’ve been trying to trick me into staying up here all alone when the world is safe again.”
“Why would you believe him? You said yourself that he’s smart, and devious, and he just wants to find a way to steal what you’ve got. Just because he made up a story, you’re going to ignore what you heard with your own ears last night?”
Madelyn took in a slow breath and held it for a second before she let it out. Someone was lying. If it was just a decision between Jacob and Gabriel, it would be a simple problem to solve. One man was a slippery old codger who had tried to trick her before. The boy was the spitting image of her brother when he was young, and he had no reason to want to trick her. She had invited Jacob in and then chased him down to get him to accept the offer.
If the choice was just between Gabriel and Jacob, it was no choice at all.
The problem was, there was a third person in the equation whom she couldn’t trust.
That person was herself.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”
#
#
#
#
#
“I don’t understand,” Jacob said.
To his credit, he was helping her roll up the sod despite the fact that she hadn’t explained.
“He shot his weapon three times,” she said. “It was either the same gun that went off, or it was a remarkably similar gun with the same rounds. Did you hear the way all three echoed in the same way?”
“Sure?”
“He didn’t move between the shots. This time of the evening, that’s a suicidal thing to do.”
“Is it any worse than dragging these big slabs with a winch?” Jacob asked. He was looking down at the big hunks of concrete that covered her incinerator.
“They’re both stupid things to do.”
“Should we wait for morning?” Jacob asked.
“Can’t,” Madelyn said. She moved the last of the sod and attached the hook to the ring on the slab. “I can’t afford to wait until tomorrow to find out if I’m crazy.”
Jacob just stood there.
“Move,” she said. “You need to move unless you want to fall into the pit.”
Jacob moved reluctantly. Madelyn activated the winch and pulled the slab. The grinding sound was louder and more ominous at night. It was the sound of a crypt lid being pushed away by a vampire. It was an undead sound.
The slab revealed a black rectangle in the ground. For a second, there could have been anything down there.
Madelyn pushed the button on her flashlight.
A bright beam leapt into the hole. Jacob took a step back from the light.
She saw only white powder down there.
Madelyn crouched and moved her light around.
“What are you looking for?” Jacob asked.
“Bones,” she said. “It takes two cycles to reduce the bones to dust. Noah’s bones should be in there. I don’t see anything.”
“He was sick,” Jacob said. “We knew he was going to die because his bones were being eaten from the inside out.”
Madelyn moved her flashlight from the pit up to Jacob’s face. He was being serious.
“That’s convenient,” she said. She returned her light to the pit and got down on her knees so she could see every corner. There was no need to move the other slab—there was nothing there.
“Convenient or not, it’s true.”
“Maybe,” Madelyn said. She stood up and wiped her hand on her pants.
“You have a different explanation?” he asked.
“Yeah. Maybe his bones aren’t there because I imagined him. Maybe some part of my brain was so desperate to survive that it invented the idea of my brother showing up right at the moment I was going to commit suicide. His arrival gave me an excuse to stay alive.”
“You didn’t imagine him. I came with him.”
“Which means that I’m imagining you too,” she said. It was obvious. She had been thinking it for a while. She hadn’t been able to admit it to herself until that moment.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “I’m here. I am physical proof of myself.”
“The brain is an amazing device,” she said. “I could be imagining everything. After all, Gabe didn’t see you. The computer at the camp didn’t respond to you.”
“
Your
control panel responded to me. I’m not imaginary just because I don’t know how to use some antiquated voice interface thing. Besides, why would your brain be able to invent
some
physical evidence and not
all
?”
“What do you mean?”
She clicked off her flashlight and put her hands on her hips.
“Why would you imagine me, right here in front of you, and not be able to imagine my father’s skeleton down in that pit? What’s the difference?”
She blinked and thought about it. No reasonable argument came to mind. She had intended to open the pit and prove it one way or the other, and that’s exactly what she had done.
Madelyn shook her head.
“You’re not real,” she said. “You’re a figment of my imagination.”
“Maybe you’re the one who isn’t real,” he said. “Maybe you did shoot yourself and this is your version of purgatory.”
“Which would still mean that you’re not real,” she said.
“You’re impossible,” he said. Jacob headed for the cabin.
“Wait! Help me cover this thing back up.”
She heard the door slam.
M
ADELYN
MADE
NO
EFFORT
to sneak up on his camp. She spotted the truck and walked right into the center of Circle Poke. She held her rifle under her arm and turned through the compass, regarding the old buildings there.
“Gabriel,” she called. “Gabriel Saxon, come on out.”
She turned at the sound of rusty hinges.
“Hold on. Hold on,” he said. He came through the door, pulling his suspenders up over his old shoulders. He laughed when he looked to her. “Don’t shoot,” he said. He put his arms up and then lowered one to the railing as he came down the porch steps.
She raised the gun to her shoulder.
“Throw down your weapons,” she said.
He stopped and gave her a serious look.
“All I have on me is this old buck knife. Everything else is in the truck.”
She put her finger on the trigger when he reached around his back. His sharp eyes caught the movement and his arm stopped mid-reach.
Gabriel turned enough so that she could see him pull the knife from its sheath. He tossed it to the ground between them.
“Lose the clothes,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Take it off. Right down to your skivvies.”
“There are more polite ways to get me undressed, madam.”
“Save the banter and strip.”
She debated putting a bullet in the ground next to him to urge him on, but rejected the notion. She still wasn’t settled with the idea of all that noise.
Gabriel was slow to get undressed. He was clearly accustomed to having a bench to sit on while he removed his pants. She was doing him a favor. He was getting a good lesson in how bad his balance had become. The old man almost fell over when it came time to remove his socks. Madelyn pointed her rifle at the hollow where his neck met his shoulder. She imagined the bullet ripping into that delicate flesh and carving a channel down the center of his ribcage, through his heart, and then making a mess of his guts. He would be dead before he hit the ground.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. He coughed up phlegm from his bent-over lungs.
“You apologized,” she said. “This is me accepting your apology. Now step back from the pile.”
She kept her gun pointed at him while she knelt and dug into the pockets of his still-warm jeans.
“Where are the keys to your truck?”
“They’re in it,” he said.
She nearly shot him when he pointed at his truck. His arm had moved too fast and startled her.
Gabriel sensed how close he had come to losing his life. He crossed his arms in front of his sagging chest. The puffy white hair between his breasts matched the hair poking out from his boxers. Madelyn spat at the thought.
“Where’s your gear?”
This time, he pointed only with his eyes. “Truck,” he said.
“Good. I gather you still know where my cabin is. You hike up there and you may or may not find a young man who may or may not be my nephew. He might just be the ghost of my younger brother. Regardless, if he’s there, he might take you in. He might shoot you.”
She picked up his clothes with one hand and backed towards the truck.
“You’re not making sense, Madelyn.”
“I know,” she said. “If you’ve been paying attention, you might notice that the whole world doesn’t make sense.”
He tilted his head and acknowledged her statement with a tiny nod.
“I’ll be back for you before long. Or maybe not. Help yourself to what’s left of David’s clothes.”
There was a dangerous second while she took her eyes off of him to open the truck door. She tossed his stuff inside and reached in to start the engine. It was a strange sound after all those years. A combustion engine was an impossible relic. She could hardly believe that she was taking a chance on something that loud, or something that produced that much heat.
Gabriel was still standing there, covering his chest with his crossed arms. She almost felt sorry for him. After dropping the truck into reverse, she pulled the rifle inside and closed the door. He didn’t even chase her as she pulled away.
#
#
#
#
#
The road was a nightmare. The truck was capable. Even with its high clearance, she felt the bottom of the vehicle scrape a couple of times. She saw evidence of Gabriel’s trip up the mountain. Trees had been divided and jerked out of the way. A stray rock had been rolled to the side. It was impressive work for the old man. She glanced over her shoulder at the bed of the truck. His tools were back there. Gabriel had used mechanical advantage to compensate for withering muscles.
Madelyn put the window down and let the wind blast.
It was amazing how it all came back to her. Speed was so alluring. She didn’t realize how much she had missed it. The road got better as it descended. She found a patch of pavement and smiled at how the tires sung. She dropped the transmission to take some of the strain off the brakes. This was the farthest she had been from the cabin in decades. As she imagined the distance, a light, panicky flutter passed through her chest and zipped down her legs. This was the real world that she was headed towards. Regardless of the condition of things, she was going to experience something new today. The idea was intoxicating.
Madelyn lost track of time as she drove. The sun, the wind, and the sound of the engine all conspired to hypnotize her. Her mind wanted to wander back to the cabin where Jacob would have discovered her absence. If he even existed, he would discover her absence. She still wasn’t sure. That was all in the past. She needed to allow herself to focus on the future.
She slowed as her access road joined back into the highway.
The truck seemed even harder to control as she kept it between the guardrail and the rocks. This truck wasn’t meant to be corralled by civilization. Madelyn smiled. She empathized.
She slammed on the brakes as her eyes locked on the horizon.
There was smoke.
It wasn’t haze, like from a wildfire. This was a line of dark smoke rising into the sky. This was from a bonfire.
“Hot damn,” Madelyn whispered. She smiled and slapped her leg. She stomped on the gas and the back end of the truck did a little dance as the tires caught traction. Madelyn sped downhill towards town. Her hopes grew as she descended out of the hills.
#
#
#
#
#
Madelyn slowed to a stop and shut off the truck. It was hot down in Fairbanks. The warm air blew in through her open window. She could smell the fire. The smoke was rising from over near the airfield. Madelyn stepped down from the truck and slung her rifle over her back. She began her trek down through the park. She knew a path that led from Birch Hill to the north side of the airfield.
The fire was an amazing sight, but she would still approach with caution.
Still protected by a line of trees, and at least a couple hundred meters from the fire, Madelyn stopped to listen. If it was a party, there would be music. From what she remembered, people in Fairbanks went nuts for music.
She didn’t hear a thing.
Turning her nose to the air, she smelled something under woodsmoke. They were using some sort of synthetic fuel. Maybe that’s why the smoke was so dark. She broke from the path and used a thick patch of growth as cover as she approached.
Madelyn crept forward until she found the old fence. The poles were rusted and tipped. She moved through a gap and dropped to her belly so she could get close enough to see. The foliage ran out at the cracked pavement of the airstrip. Madelyn parted leaves and looked.