Chapter 56
I woke up in the morning, I glanced upon the wall.
The roaches and the bedbugs were having a game of ball.
The score was six to nothing, the roaches were ahead.
A bedbug hit a home run and knocked me out of bed!
It ain't gonna rain no more, no more,
It ain't gonna rain no more,
How in the heck can I wash my neck
If it ain't gonna rain no more?
- Campfire Song
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"Come on, Harper. One foot after the other… That's good…"
Harper grimaced weakly and let his head fall forward. "Boss…"
"Just a little farther, Harper," Dylan said quickly, guessing the engineer's words. The boy was leaning heavily on him, a combination of sickness and intense pain added to bloody, mangled bare feet making walking a monumental task for the kid. Dylan hated pushing him like this, causing him more anguish, but he also knew they had to get as far from the camp as they could. "Just a little farther and then we'll find somewhere to stop for the night, okay?"
"'K," Harper ground out through gritted teeth as he shuffled forward another step, their chains clanking eerily in the failing light.
Dylan sighed and not for the first time in this very long day wondered if this was even worth it. He stilled those thoughts quickly, though, knowing it was. No matter what the pain, or even if they died on this desperate journey, it would still be worth it. They were free, Harper and Twig were free. No more whips slashing them, or Niets yelling at or beating them. They were free.
And they were not going to die. They'd made it this far, there was no way he was losing either of them now.
Squaring his shoulders with determination once again, Dylan glanced up to make sure he could still see the river in the distance. That river was their salvation and their guide. He knew from that first horrible march to the camp that the road followed the river down and out of the mountains before it took off separately across the woods and plains. Sticking to the river not only gave them an assured source of water, but kept them from getting turned around.
Confident that he knew its location and wouldn't get lost, Dylan veered his little group off to the left. Those darker spots against the rocky hillside were probably caves, and at this point as he listened to Harper's hacking cough and watched Twig shivering, Dylan knew that any little shelter would help.
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"You know, Boss, I still can't believe it."
"Believe what, Harper?" Dylan asked, reaching over to tuck the blanket tighter around his friend.
"Well, two things really," the young man said, too worn out to protest the older man's fussing. "One – that you even managed to get a fire going. But two – that you dared. I mean, remember the Ubers? Big fellows with supersensitive…um…senses?"
Dylan laughed – something which felt really, really good. "Oh yes, I remember them. But, the wood's dry, the fire is well hidden, and we're inside a cave. The risk of any smoke escaping is very slim, a risk I was more than willing to take given the chance to warm us all up and have an actual, hot meal. As for starting the fire…well that part was easy. Already have plenty of steel," he said, letting the chains binding his wrists jangle purposefully. "Just had to find the right rock to complete the equation."
Harper laughed weakly as well, a laugh that dissolved into a cough. "That's right. I keep forgetting that you are Mr. Boy Scout here," he finally said when it cleared enough he could speak again.
"Well, even if I hadn't loved camping as a kid, the Academe was pretty insistent on survival skills, especially for Special Ops Officers." Dylan paused to look around for a moment, taking in the sight of his two young friends and their surroundings. The cave was a good size, not too big, but large enough to provide shelter and hide any smoke from their fire. Harper and Twig were bundled up in their blankets; the little boy snuggled up against the engineer's side and staring with fascination at the dancing flames in front of them. It was almost kind of cozy, in a desperate sort of way. Dylan allowed himself to relax marginally. They needed this, oh how they needed this.
"What about you, though?" Dylan continued. "I thought survival skills where your forte, being from Earth and all."
"City boy, remember?" Harper said. "Give me concrete and sewers and I'm your man, but surviving in ghetto central just doesn't go far to getting you your Great Outdoors Merit Badge." His face took on a thoughtful expression, as if he was remembering things from long ago. "I think I remember seeing all of three trees while living on Earth, and two of those were mostly dead. I'm still not sold on this whole camping thing, but if you promise not to tell a soul, I'll let ya in on a little secret. I used to dream about trying it. Nana'd tell me stories involving weird rituals – things like campfire songs, fishing, sleeping under stars, strange treats called s'mores. Siobhán, Declan, and I used to build a tent of blankets in the main room of our shack and pretend we were living it up in the wilderness, somewhere where the wildlife didn't want to infest ya."
"Sounds like good times," Dylan said gently.
"Yeah, it was," Harper answered with a sad smile.
"Tell you what, when we get off this crappy planet and take care of a few things, we are all taking a vacation. I'm gonna take you two camping the right way. Heck, we'll bring the whole crew."
Twig's face lit up at that. "Me? I get to go, too?"
"Of course. Wouldn't be any fun without you," Dylan assured him. "Besides, you've got perfect camping skills. That was some mighty fine fishing you did tonight. I never could have done that good, not with these stupid chains on."
"It was fun!" Twig grinned. "And they tasted really good. Can we do that again?"
"Oh, I'm sure we'll be eating fish again before we're done."
"Which reminds me…" Harper interrupted, grimacing as he leaned his lacerated back against the cave wall for support, trying futilely to get comfortable. "How come you never told me you had a knife?" he shot at Dylan, raising his eyebrows in question.
"It was safer that way," Dylan answered practically. "Stealing and hiding contraband weapons didn't strike me as a healthy hobby. If I got caught I didn't want you to know anything about it. I was trying to keep you from getting hurt more."
"Thanks, I guess," Harper replied. "Still, in the future, those kind of things would be really nice to know about, okay?"
"I'll make a note, Mr. Harper."
Harper broke into a hacking cough, but it wasn't as harsh as it had been during the day. A good meal and the warmth of the fire and several blankets seemed to be doing their job. Wearily he blinked his eyes, unwilling to give in to sleep just yet.
"Harper," Twig said suddenly, gazing up at his friend with huge, dark eyes. "Could you…um…tell me more about Jack?" The question was hesitant, almost fearful. The last time he'd asked it, Harper had shut him out and pushed him away.
Harper closed his eyes for a moment, remembering as well, then opened them and smiled at the boy. "Sure, Twig. Might as well start practicing on those campfire stories now, right Dylan?"
"Smart plan."
"So, where were we, Kiddo? Had Jack met the sleeping princess and the seven vertically challenged men yet?"
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"Harper?"
Harper opened his eyes tiredly, knowing Twig was lying right next to him, probably facing him now. He was exhausted but he hurt too much to sleep, still he'd been pretending to rest, not wanting to worry Dylan. Apparently, he wasn't the only one not sleeping.
"Yeah, Twig?" he whispered.
"Do you think Peter and Dakin are dead?" the child asked, his voice wavering with tears.
Harper paused, his own emotions threatening to rise up at the soft question. "I don't know," he finally answered gently.
"Are they in Heaven with Simon and Ethan if they are?"
"Yes," Harper answered firmly. "I'm sure they are."
"I'll miss them."
"Me, too."
"Harper, if they aren't dead, do you think they'll be mad at me for leaving?"
"Oh, no, Twig," Harper whispered fervently. "They'll be very, very happy that you left. They wanted you to be free, not be a slave anymore, okay. I want you to remember that, no matter what."
"'K," Twig answered again.
"Better go to sleep now," Harper told the boy. The engineer felt him nod and snuggle closer, and after a while his breathing evened out in the rhythm of sleep. For a long time Harper just lay there, listening to the sound of his friends breathing around while his thoughts wandered.
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They walked for days. After the first couple nights on the run spent in, all things considered, relative comfort, things took a decided slide downhill. Three days out it started to rain – hard. Not even Dylan's formidable survival skills could combat soggy wood, wet vegetation, and lack of adequate shelter. If they'd been cold and miserable in the camp it was nothing compared to how they were now. Dylan tried to keep them warm, wrapped a blanket around Harper's bare shoulders and made Twig do the same, but it didn't help much. The cough deepened and Harper's complexion stayed constant at a deathly pale that bordered on gray.
Five days out the rain turned to snow for the first time and Dylan began to question if they would actually survive this. That same day they ate the last of the very hard, very dry bread Dylan had stolen from the camp. The fish Dylan and Twig had caught that first night were long gone as well. Now the captain would have to scavenge for food in earnest in a barren, winter wasteland. It wasn't impossible, but what he found was hardly enough to consider life sustaining. Still, they kept going. They had nothing else to do, and nothing else to lose.
As the days passed, Twig began to struggle as well. The longer they walked, the worse it got, and by the time they would stop at night, his face was drawn and pinched with pain. He never said a word, but Dylan saw his little hands pressed tightly to his chest, heard the ragged breathing. It tore the captain up inside. He helped the child when he could, and cursed the whole Nietzschean race and their cruelty when he was forced to let the boy struggle on his own so he could help Harper.
And so they walked, and Harper's feet turned to bloody shreds again from the sharps rocks and rough ground. Dylan tried carrying him but the cumbersome chains were always in the way, and his own strength just wasn't what it used to be. Instead, he sacrificed half of one of their precious six blankets to wrap them as tightly and thickly as possible. It seemed to help for a while. But if things kept going how they were and that cough meant what he was sure it did, it might not matter…
Sometimes, Dylan wasn't even sure the young man was really with them, reality-wise. In the daylight hours he started mumbled conversations with people who weren't there, and at night he spent his dreams lost in a world of his own. Occasionally, Dylan caught names – Trance, Rommie, Beka, Brendan, Colleen…
And if Dylan thought, every once in a while, that if he turned quickly enough one of the shadows of the evening might not be a shadow at all, he reminded himself how tired he was, how worn and stressed, how tightly-strung his emotions and senses really were, and always managed to convince himself otherwise.
(Author's Note: At some future point an alternate ending of this story will be posted. For all interested in reading it and knowing how it connects to the original, this is the point that the two versions diverge. It won't be posted until the original is finished, or close to finished, but I thought people might like a heads up, and to know where they break apart.)
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Dylan was trying to help Harper across a particularly rocky patch of ground when he felt a small tug on his sleeve.
"Not now, Twig," he said, weariness making his tone shorter than he meant.
Twig stopped, but only for an instant. Seconds later the little boy was pulling on his sleeve again. "Dylan, Dylan… Look…"
The captain sighed and bit his tongue before he said something he'd regret. Pretty much carrying Harper, Dylan picked him up and set him down gently on the other side of the rocks. Then he turned to the tiny slave.
"Yes, Twig? What do you want me to see?"
"Over there," the little boy pointed off in the distance across the open plain they were now at the edge of and to where a small grove of trees cut across it. "What is that?"
Dylan followed his finger, sucking in a small breath of surprise when he saw what Twig was asking about.
"What is it?" Harper asked, hearing Dylan's gasp of surprise. It was a "good day' today, the kid being mostly lucid. He was actually making an effort to follow along with what was happening around him.
"It's a ship," Dylan breathed reverently.
"A ship?" Harper was skeptical.
"Well, the remains of one, a crashed one," Dylan clarified. "But still, who knows what we could find on there that could help us."
"Or who you might find on there," the engineer added darkly, bringing Dylan sharply back to reality.
"Right, but it's still a risk worth taking. You two stay here; I'm gonna go scout it out."
"Be careful," Harper croaked before dissolving into a fit of coughing.
Dylan could see the worry etched deeply onto his friend's face and sighed tiredly. "I promise, no heroics, Harper," he said gently, letting his hand rest for just a moment on the boy's arm to reassure him. Touch was important to Harper nowadays; it kept him grounded in a very dark world. "I'll be careful. Here, Twig," he added to the child, "you're in charge of our stuff while I'm gone." He pulled the knife out and tucked it into his waistband, then set the bucket with their pitiful belongings in it beside the boy. "Keep an eye on Harper."
"Okay, Dylan," Twig replied quietly, slipping his hand into the engineer's good one.
"Good boy," Dylan nodded. He started across the open space, trying to stay low and keep his chains quiet. He'd only gone ten steps when he heard a small sob and the sound of someone in distress calling his name. It was Twig. He glanced back to find the boy crying in Harper's arms, shaking.
"What is it, Twig?" he asked, coming back quickly.
"You're not coming back, are you? You're gonna leave us," Twig sobbed.
"Oh, Twig," Dylan breathed, pulling the boy into his own arms and sparing a moment to think of just how much the kid had lost in the last little while, how many family members had 'gone away' and never come back. "Of course I'm not gonna leave you," he whispered. "Ask Harper." But when he looked at Harper he surprisingly saw some of the same doubts reflected on his face as well. The young man was trying to hide it, but Dylan saw real fear there – fear of being left alone, abandoned by his captain and friend in the dark.
"Okay you guys," Dylan said shaking his head. He pulled Twig as close as his chains would let him, then reached out and grabbed Harper's good hand, not oblivious to the slight tremble he felt there. "I am not leaving you. I would never, ever do that. After all this time I thought you two had that figured out, but if it makes you feel better I'll tell you again. It's just that it is too dangerous for us all to go over there and I'm not putting you into any more danger than I have to. You're my crew, my family. That's what captains do, protect their crew. So just stay safely hidden here and I'll be back as soon as I can. Promise."
Twig sniffed loudly, but finally nodded his head.
"Go on, Boss," Harper said. "We'll be fine."
"I'll be back soon." His two charges still appeared rather worried, but neither protested this time, so he carefully set off across the meadow for a second time, wondering just exactly which type of luck was smiling on them today, the good kind, or the bad…