Infinity's Reach Read online

  “He didn’t leave us,” Infinity said. “We left him.”

  “Well yeah. But if we hadn’t, we would have gotten shot.”

  “He said he’d find us.”

  “When? Today? A week from now? A year from now? When all there’s left of us is a pile of bones on this little island?”

  “Ellie, lower your voice,” Finn said. I realized that I’d begun shouting without knowing it. I stopped talking and we listened for any sound from shore. All I heard were the sounds of croaking frogs and an occasional loon.

  I could tell Infinity was torn, and I felt bad about pressing the issue. We sat there and stared at each other for a long time, each trying to come up with an idea.

  “The fog will lift,” she said quietly. “Evangelist will come.”

  “He’d better,” I muttered back to her. I traced lines on the ground with a stick as I talked. We sat there silent for a long while until Infinity finally spoke.

  “I remembered some more,” she said quietly.

  I stared back at her, expectantly. Finally, she opened her mouth and told her story. Back to ToC

  10. on our own

  INFINITY: OUTSIDE BALTIMORE, MD: DAY ZERO

  I wasn’t totally convinced that Damien had the best idea when he suggested that we ride horses all the way to Cape Cod from Baltimore. But I was still in shock, as I suspected the others were. I usually had some pretty good ideas—at least I thought so—but at that moment, I couldn’t come up with one. What I’d seen of the school administration didn’t give me a lot of confidence in their abilities. And after waiting for several hours, we still hadn’t seen anyone from the city or state government telling us what to do or where to go.

  So, even though I wasn’t 100% behind Damien when we mounted the horses and rode out of the stable and over Ms. Teasdale, I kept my mouth shut. I knew Ellie would follow whatever I decided to do, and Kimmy and Marcie were, well, they were Kimmy and Marcie. They didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.

  The school was located 12 miles west of Baltimore, and so I knew that we would have to go around greater Baltimore and a lot of other places. And I started thinking that when other people saw what we were doing, they would think that was a pretty good idea too. I didn’t want to have to fight someone over who rode the horses, especially if they had a gun and we didn’t.

  What that meant was that we needed to find every back road through Maryland and every other state between us and Massachusetts. Damien must have had telepathy, because he automatically turned onto a back road that took us into the countryside. I’d been born with no sense of direction, so I couldn’t tell if we were going north, south, east or…north. But I did hope that we were going north.

  Me and the other girls were putting a lot of trust in Damien’s hands. That made me a little uneasy, even if he was my boyfriend. I knew that he was clever enough to do things to get adults in trouble. But was he clever enough to get us past several million of those adults, many who’d be just as desperate to get out of town as we were?

  I also thought about Daddy—and the young man in the suit that he had sent to rescue me. I knew that Daddy would have his hands full, and even if he did worry about me, there wasn’t a lot he could do. From what I had seen, no helicopter, car or motorcycle would be coming for me, at least anytime soon. But as we rode along, I glanced back at the three girls, and I got the same sense from them that maybe heading north on our own wasn’t the best plan we could come up with.

  An hour into riding, Kimmy was shouting for us to stop. I grinned at Ellie and Damien, for we both knew that Kimmy and Marcie would be saddle sore a long time before the rest of us were ready to stop. Damien started to yell back at her, but I cleared my throat and he decided that maybe it was a good time to rest.

  Ellie led the horses down to a creek that was flowing near us, and the rest of us broke into our bags of food. It was well past noon, and even though we had only been riding for an hour, all of us were hungry. I got some bread and salami and made some real quick sandwiches. Kimmy dug out some corn chips and cookies, and Ellie returned to the four of us with an armful of apples. She grinned as she told us that there were several trees with small green apples available near the creek.

  “Ew, this one has a worm. Ew, this one has a brown spot,” Marcie said.

  Ellie rolled her eyes at me, and I spoke up.

  “Marcie, I’ve got a good idea that we’re not going to have the luxury of turning down food after this.”

  “What,” she responded. “You’re not supposed to eat an apple with a worm in it. It’s not sanitary.”

  Damien grinned, and then Ellie spoke up.

  “Give it back to me,” she said. “I know the horses will eat it.”

  “OK, we’ve had our rest. We need to get back on the road,” said Damien.

  “Already?” Kimmy said. “My butt is still sore.”

  “Kimmy, you’re butt is going to be sore, regardless,” said Ellie.

  “Can I switch horses with someone?” Kimmy asked. No one volunteered to switch with her, so we mounted up and started riding. We rode along the stream for a long while, underneath elm trees caught in the transition between spring and summer. The sun shone warm on our backs and faces, a cool breeze blew out of the west, and the birds around us chirped cheerfully. After a while I realized that I didn’t hear the sound of traffic—anywhere—and so it was much easier to hear nature again. It was easy to forget that we were riding out of danger, seeking shelters hundreds of miles to the north, because someone was attacking the United States.

  We stopped a lot earlier than I—or probably Damien—would have liked. Most of it was because Kimmy spent the next two hours complaining incessantly. Her butt hurt, her back hurt, she was hot, she was tired, she was…well, she was Kimmy. Marcie didn’t say much, but she wore that pouty look on her face when things weren’t going her way. I have no idea what they expected from a ride 200 miles on horses, but the rest of us were getting very tired of it very quickly.

  Damien picked a spot under a freeway overpass that was near the stream we’d been following. Damien started a fire and Ellie drew water from the creek. Both Damien and Ellie lectured us on the need to boil the water before using it. While I sorted through the food and tried to make a semblance of a camp, Kimmy and Marcie sat on a log facing the stream, moaning about how terrible the trip had been so far and how they had no idea how they would survive the rest of the way.

  “That’s the truest thing I have heard them say so far,” said Ellie. “I don’t know how they’re going to survive either.”

  “Cut her some slack, would you,” Marcie finally said back to us. “She’s on her period.”

  Ellie and I snickered, and Damien shook his head.

  “That’s not going to be much of an excuse for anything from this point on.”

  “What do you know, Mr. Smartass,” Marcie said. “You’re a boy.”

  “I know that no one’s going to take care of you anymore. Either of you. You either pull your own weight or you get left behind.”

  “That’s probably the most insensitive thing I have heard—.”

  “OK, can we can the argument?” I said finally. “Kimmy, I realize that you’re not at your best, but you’re going to have to grow up fast. Damien, just…leave them alone.”

  Damien shrugged.

  “All I know is that tomorrow we need to make three times as many miles as we did today,” he said. “That means getting to bed soon and getting up while it’s still dark so we can be riding at daybreak.”

  “I plan on doing a little reading before bed,” Marcie said.

  “How will you do that?” Ellie asked. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  Marcie grinned and held up a flashlight.

  Damien, standing behind her, reached down and snatched the flashlight from her.

  “You waste the batteries and later you’ll be putting your life in danger.” He took the flashlight and put it in his backpack.

  Marcie put on
her pouty face again, but didn’t argue.

  As the sun went down, we dined on a dinner of macaroni and cheese, which Ellie put together for us. I was impressed. The only meal I had been able to fix up to this point was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I decided that if I was going to survive the coming weeks and months, I’d need to watch and learn whenever I got the chance.

  As Ellie and I took care of the horses, Damien put his and my sleeping bags next to each other, right next to the wall that went up to the overpass. Ellie laid hers out near ours. But despite all of our warnings, Kimmy and Marcie laid their sleeping bags on the rise immediately above the stream.

  “I like to hear the sound of running water,” Kimmy said. “I’m used to hearing cars, so this will help me sleep.”

  I was worried that one of them would roll down the incline into the water, but Damien gave me a look that told me to not argue with them.

  My mind was full of a lot of things, mostly questions about what the future would hold for us. Would Daddy come to get me? If so, how would they get here? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my father would be up to his armpits in crocodiles. Even if he wanted to rescue me, he didn’t have the resources to do so.

  I drifted off into a fitful sleep, the sound of horses and a babbling stream running through my mind.

  The sun was already up when I opened my eyes. I woke up to look into the face of a man in a Maryland State Trooper uniform with squinty eyes and a bushy mustache, leaning over me. I let out a little scream, and the others jumped up where they were lying. Sure enough, when Kimmy jerked out of her sleep, she rolled in her sleeping bag down the embankment and into the small stream. Fortunately for her, where she landed was shallow. But still she ended up getting a morning bath she hadn’t planned on.

  I sat up, pulling the top of my sleeping bag over me, shock still on my face. Damien was already up, and standing next to the officer, with two more officers beside him.

  “What’s your name, girl,” the mustached officer asked me harshly.

  “Finn…Finn…Infinity Richards, sir,” I stammered.

  “And this is Eleanor Sanchez, Kimberly Moscewitz, and Marcela Swan, officer,” added Damien.

  The officer didn’t look impressed. He stood facing me with his hands on his hips, apparently trying to decide what to do.

  “You know you five are in a boatload of trouble,” he said.

  “Trouble?” I repeated.

  “You do realize that stealing horses is a capital offense,” he said. “In years past, they have hanged people for stealing horses.”

  “Oh, come on,” Damien said. “This is the 21st Century.”

  “Be that as it may, yesterday changed a lot of things. I suspect that people are going to need every horse and every bicycle they can find. And they can’t be wasted on some fools errand by a bunch of teenagers.”

  “What…what are going to do with us?” Ellie asked.

  “Well, marshal law’s been declared,” he said. “I would be within my rights to shoot the lot of you right here.”

  “Shoot us! No!” Kimmy said, standing on the rise above the creek, her wet sleeping bag draped over one arm.

  “Your Honor, please don’t shoot us,” Marcie said.

  “I ain’t no honor, but you’ll probably be seeing one soon,” he said, and I saw a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll have my boys here round up your horses and take them back to town. They’ve been confiscated by the authorities for emergency transportation use. And as for you five, I’ll give you three minutes to gather up your things and come with me. People have been looking for you.”

  We jumped out of our sleeping bags, pulled our jeans on quickly and grabbed everything and shoved it into our backpacks. Five minutes later, we followed the officer up steps beside the overpass to the top of the freeway. On the top, we saw a continuous line of cars laid out as if they had been stopped in mid journey, just as they had been. On the shoulder of the road stood a large wagon with big rubber tires, attached to two very large horses. The back of the wagon was surrounded by chicken wire on a metal frame, and a gate had been added to the back.

  “Get in,” the officer said. We followed his orders and climbed into the back of the wagon. After we did, I was surprised to see him put a padlock on the back gate.

  “Why the lock?” I asked meekly.

  “Because I have more important things to do than chase after a bunch of teenagers who think they can take whatever they want. Now sit down and shut up.”

  I did as he said. The officer climbed into the seat behind the horses as if he did it every day, shook the reins and the horses started moving.

  “You think the principal’s going to be pissed?” I asked Damien.

  “What do you think?” he said, staring back at me seriously. Back to ToC

  11. separate ways

  ELLIE: EASTERN TENNESSEE: DAY 715

  Infinity paused, and I didn’t interrupt her. We stared at each other for a long moment, both of us realizing that the world we had known was gone. The fog still lay thick around us, and our mood became like the fog: heavy, dense, depressing.

  “That’s all I remember, Ellie,” Infinity said finally, her voice not directed at me, but more at herself.

  “I know. I don’t remember any more either.” I stared back at her and struggled to find something positive, something comforting, to say.

  “Well, my clothes are finally dry,” I said as brightly as I could. “That’s something at least.”

  Infinity took a deep breath. “Yup. It could be a lot worse. They could have caught us.” I shuddered when I thought of the men who had chased us last night.

  “I…don’t hear their voices anymore,” I said quietly. “That’s a good sign.”

  “I think they’re as lost in this fog as we are.”

  Suddenly I had an idea. “Then let’s retrace our steps. Let’s go back.”

  “Back?”

  “Yeah. We might be able to find our backpacks and our gear. We could even go back to Harmony and maybe that old woman would take care of us.”

  Infinity shook her head. “I got the idea that the only person she took care of was herself. Did you see how fat she was and how skinny everyone else was?”

  But I wasn’t that easily discouraged. “Look, do you have a better idea?”

  “Yeah. We do what Evangelist said and head west. He’s bound to catch up to us sooner or later.”

  “How, Finn?” I asked, my voice beginning to get shrill. “How will he find us? We don’t know where we are, we don’t know which way is west, and we have no way of getting out of here!”

  “Ellie, calm down,” Infinity said. “It’ll all work out. Evangelist works for my Daddy and I know for a fact that my Daddy only hires the very best, the smartest, the most determined men and women available. I know that Evangelist will be here.”

  “Someday,” I added.

  Infinity nodded, then added. “Real soon.”

  Logically, I knew she was right. But I had a hard time admitting that our best course of action was just to sit tight. I’ve never been a patient person, and sitting on a little island in a sea of sludge and fog wasn’t easy for me. I nodded agreement with Infinity, but inside I knew that I was close to the end of my rope.

  “So what do we do now? Sing?”

  Infinity shook her head. “Those crazies are still out there. We sing and that’s like ringing a dinner bell for them.”

  “Eww, did you have to say that?”

  Infinity grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “So singing’s out of the question.”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t advise us to do anything loud, at least until we know who’s out there.” We looked at her and I nodded, then she apparently had an idea of her own. She held up a finger and then reached down and selected two small, straight sticks that lay at the waterline. She gave me one and took the other and drew four lines, two left to right and two up and down. I instantly recognized the pattern.

 
I drew an X in the corner. She drew an O in the middle.

  An hour later, we were sick and tired of tic-tac-toe. So we tried to think of some other games. Finally we improvised a checkerboard and checkers, me using pieces of driftwood for the white checkers, she using small stones for the black checkers. That lasted a couple of hours.

  Finally we looked at each other and sighed. Neither one of us wanted to say it, but we were hungry, cold and depressed. Water surrounded us, but we didn’t dare drink it. And as we looked around us, we realized that it was getting dark again.

  Tears came into my eyes even though I tried to be brave. Infinity reached over and wrapped me in a hug. We sat there on the edge of the water for a long time, our arms around each other, both lost little girls. And then the tears came hard and fast for both of us. After a long 15 minutes of crying, we both were spent, but felt better.

  “Maybe we should have done that earlier,” Infinity said, sniffing.

  “Ahh, I’m a mess, and no tissues in sight,” I responded. “But thanks. I needed that.”

  “Should we try a fire?” Infinity asked.

  “No,” I said. “You’re right. Those crazies could still be out there. And I want them to stay on their side of the neighborhood.”

  “Then I guess the only thing left is for us to get some sleep,” Infinity said.

  We lay down together on a soft piece of sand and listened to the small waves lapping on the shore. We huddled close together to keep warm, Infinity behind me with her arm draped over my waist.

  “Finn?” I asked quietly after a few minutes.

  “Yes.”

  “If the fog is still here in the morning, I want to go back.”

  She paused. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.”

  “OK,” I said, but I knew that she’d never go back.

  My stomach growled all night. It had been more than 24 hours since we’d eaten that possum burger in Harmony, and I couldn’t get the sight of it out of my mind, or the taste of it out of my mouth. Infinity fell asleep right away, but I stayed awake for a long time. Every time I heard a strange sound—a splash, a distant scream, an animal noise—I shook with fear. I realized that even though I’d gone camping with my father years before, I would never be totally comfortable in the wild. And when I thought about walking across the entire United States—these wild, frightening United States—I realized that I couldn’t do it.