Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series) (20 page)

It was unlike her to be brief.  I was instantly worried we were not, in fact, fine, so I launched into the speech I concocted while searching for her.

“I don’t know what Ben told you, but I’m not against you being together, at all.  I promise.  I just was trying to tell him to give you time to process the things that happened to you in LA.”  I paused, wondering how to continue.  “I swear I haven’t told him the things you confided in me, but I did tell him you should have time to heal before being thrown into a relationship.  And I think he misunderstood me.”

Sam wasn’t looking at me, and she didn’t appear to even be listening to me.

“Sam!  Stop!”  I broke her hold on me.  “Please, talk to me.”

She stopped and turned, looking past me.  She looked frantic.

“What’s the matter?” I said, completely confused.

There was a gut-wrenching explosion behind us, and the earth lurched beneath our feet.  A tidal wave of burning air threw us to the sandy ground, and I covered my head as smoke enveloped us, burning my eyes.  I sat up and saw the entire parking garage behind the Egyptian burning and smoldering.  The gasoline, I thought.  A sharp, popping noise made me look up.  Cracks like lightning streaked across the black glass of the Egyptian from the intense heat of the fire.  The wind was blowing the flames toward the pyramid.

Sam shoved me roughly off of her, and I turned to look at her, finally understanding.

“What did you do?!” I demanded.

“I didn’t have a choice!” she cried, then pulled herself up and tore into a sprint.  I took another look at the raging fire, and then I realized.  I had just found the saboteur.  And she was getting away.

²
Translates to “Do you know who we are?”

³
Translates to “He doesn’t know who we are.”

⁴
Pronounced ‘For-ti-tair’

My mind raced like a runaway train.  Sam blew up the fuel supply.  I was certain.  Had she stolen Grey’s medical supplies?  Had she broken the radio?  Had she caused the stampede?  I didn’t want to believe it.  But she was running from me, and that was all the proof I needed.  I couldn’t let her get away.  I jumped to my feet and chased after her, the dense smoke searing my lungs with each breath.

I screamed for help as I saw people emerge from inside, drawn out by the noise of the explosion.  But anyone who could have helped me ran toward the burning parking garage.  It was up to me.

We crossed Reno Avenue and entered the grounds of Camelot, when I suddenly realized where she was going and ran harder to close the distance while I still could.  Fear flashed through me as she climbed over the fence and mounted a saddled horse in the corral.  I scampered onto the fence and used its height to look out over the smooth multicolored backs of the corralled horses.  There were no other horses left saddled.

“Heyah!” Sam yelled, kicking the horse to jump over the fence, leaving behind a cloud of sand and dust.  She galloped around the side of the building toward Las Vegas Boulevard and disappeared.

“Snicket!” I yelled, a desperate hope fleeting through me.  The horses nearest me shied away from the noise, revealing a familiar butterscotch speckled horse drinking from a trough.  She lifted her head and tossed her mane in excitement at my voice.  I jumped from the fence and bumped my way through the mass of horses, until I reached her and grabbed her long nose in a quick hug.

“I’ve missed you!  Why did you run away?” I asked, quickly studying her for injuries.  I ran my hands down her neck, through her mane, and, out of habit, tugged on her forelock.  “We’ll talk later; right now, you’ve got to help me catch Sam.”

I looked around for a saddle, but none were left sitting out.  No matter, it would take too long to put one on anyway.  Sam was only getting further away as the seconds ticked by.

Snicket stood still while I grabbed a handful of her mane and gently tried to pull myself up.  I’d ridden her without a saddle only once before, and not for very long, but the training would have to suffice for what I had to do now.  Snicket’s back was broad and slippery underneath me, and I clutched her with my knees and steered her toward the corral gate.  As if Snicket understood the direness of the situation, she snorted and pulled against my direction, setting a pace to jump the fence as Sam did before.

“Whoa, girl.  Whoa!” I yelled.  I couldn’t jump a fence without a saddle.  Hell, I couldn’t jump a fence
in
a saddle.  I yanked back on her mane, but she was picking up speed, and the fence was rapidly approaching.

Fortiter
, I thought, sinking down close to Snicket’s neck, and as she left the ground, everything went smooth, and my heart stopped. I clenched hard with my knees as she tilted back, and I began to slip off her. I gasped and released one hand long enough to reach forward and grab her neck to hold on. Everything tilted forward as she crested the fence, and I slid back toward her neck. I knew the impact, when most people fell off, was coming.

There was no time to brace myself.  I slid forward so far my shoulder pressed against the back of her neck, and both of my arms wrapped around her.  Her hooves connected with the ground, rattling my teeth, but I stayed on.

Snicket pranced proudly a few steps and snorted derisively, as if to say, “See?”

“All right, all right,” I said, grabbing her mane once more.  “You’ve made your point.  Now let’s
go
!”  I yelled the last word and bumped her sides with my heels.  She darted forward, and we pounded around the side of the building as Las Vegas Boulevard came into view.

Sam was nowhere in sight.

“Great,” I muttered and thumped her sides with my heels, but it wasn’t necessary to ask her to go faster.  She was already galloping at full speed down the sand-covered boulevard.  I held on as best as I could; I wasn’t used to galloping.  If I weren’t chasing down a girl my own age for multiple counts of sabotage, I might have enjoyed it.  I grimaced when I realized how the situation was suddenly reversed: me chasing Sam.

I shot a glance both ways down Flamenco Avenue as we flew through the intersection.  I had no idea where Sam went.  She could have turned down a side street or might not even be sticking to the streets at all.  I decided I should stick to the Strip for the time being.

I looked up at the Statue of Liberty, standing proudly before the Big Apple Casino, as we passed.  She reminded me of the Winged Figures at the dam, rising high into the air.  Except this statue had a backdrop of peeling red roller coaster tracks and a crumbling skyline of once-familiar buildings.  Lady Liberty disappeared temporarily as I passed beneath the pedestrian bridge connecting the Palmetto to the Big Apple.  Then a soft metallic hiss of hydraulics echoed from the direction of the Big Apple.  I yanked Snicket to a standstill and looked into the darkness gathering at the base of the hotel.  The late winter sun was already past its zenith, sliding behind the building, and long shadows stretched toward me like reaching hands.

The sounds hissed quietly across the sidewalk to me once more, and I recognized the distinctive noise of automatic sliding doors over the now distant noises of the raging fire back at the Egyptian.  I guided Snicket in the direction of the shadows and found an entrance to the Big Apple.  Snicket’s hooves made contact with a pad on the ground, and the glass doors slid open, releasing a whoosh of putrid air.  I covered my nose and mouth, recoiling from it.  The doors revealed darkness peppered with emergency lights.  I hesitated.  This building hadn’t been cleared yet.  And while power was still partially functioning inside, I shuddered to think of what lay hidden for the past year in the patches of blackness inside.

The temperature was much cooler in the shade of the building, and I shivered.  I looked desperately down the street, hoping to see some sign of Sam, but the only clue I had was the noise I’d just heard.  And unless this mat was malfunctioning, she was hiding somewhere inside.

I nudged Snicket forward, and we passed into the rancid, still interior.  I tried not to think about the added comfort a flashlight or lantern would add.  I kept Snicket at a walk, unsure if Sam hid nearby, or if an obstacle lay ahead of me, blocking my path.

I jumped as several sharp noises exploded directly underneath me.  Frightened, Snicket danced sideways, and the noises followed us.  My heart thundered in my chest, and I realized the sound coincided with each strike of her hoof.   I tried to calm her down, wondering what she was stepping on.

My eyes slowly adjusted, and I looked around at what seemed to be a large hallway with hulking black shapes bending over me like buildings.  I recognized a park bench next to me and a tall skinny pole.  My eyes followed it up.  A streetlight.  What on earth?  Snicket nervously took a few steps, and the noises solidified in my ears as a clopping noise.  I immediately saw, in my mind’s eye, a period movie with antique streetlights, horses and buggies... and cobblestones.

That was it.  The hallways inside the Big Apple looked like the streets of the once proud city, down to cobblestone streets.  I was about to urge Snicket on, when a muffled noise echoed down the hall.  Sam was here, on her horse, in the Big Apple.  I strained to listen.  The clip clops grew quieter.  She was heading away from me, but it didn’t sound like she was moving fast.

I nudged Snicket forward, wishing I could find a strip of carpet to muffle her steps, but I guess carpet didn’t line the streets of New York, so I wouldn’t find it here. I focused on listening for Sam, so I wouldn’t envision what was causing the stench. I tried not to breathe through my nose.

I periodically paused, listening for the other set of clip-clopping hooves, and adjusted my bearing to follow the noise.  I turned down what looked like a narrow alley and came out into what I immediately recognized as Times Square.  Two hallways crossed, creating the “X” intersection, complete with stacked advertisements at both ends.  There were a few emergency lights still working in here, and I could plainly see the horrific scene that lay before me.

Bodies surrounded me.  They draped limply on benches lining the storefronts and restaurants, laying forward on tables in front of them, or simply stretched out in rows in the middle of the street, in various states of decomposition.  The smell was overpowering.  Worse than the compost bin at the gardens.  My eyes watered.  The air was thick, and I wasn’t sure which was worse, breathing in the smell or opening my mouth to it.

Snicket was nervous, stamping her feet and pricking her ears.  I absentmindedly brushed her neck with my fingers to calm her as my eyes fell from one scene to another around the indoor square.

A man clenched a woman to his chest, both arms still wrapped around her.  Two girls sat side by side against a hot dog cart, their heads bent together, leaning on each other.  Three little girls lay huddled around the feet of an elderly couple still perched on chairs at a table.  Each child had a string in her hand leading to deflated balloons next to them.  A young couple lay nearby wearing matching t-shirts.  One said, “Just,” the other, “Married.”  The man’s hand still lightly touched the short veil in the girl’s hair.

I couldn’t look away.  All these people died here together.  They had nowhere else to go.  There hadn’t been time.  How many other hotels along this street, in this city alone, held scenes just like this?  How many were now tombs?

A sound made me glance up from the newlyweds.  Sam was barely visible in the darkness across the square, also taking in the scene.  My mind tore through options.  Did I call out to her, hoping she was distressed enough by the scene in front of us to not run?  Did I try to sneak back into the darkness and come around another hallway to surprise her from behind?  Did I charge across the square, letting Snicket jump and dodge around the bodies strewn across the ground between us?

Just then, she looked up at me.  We stared at each other for a moment without moving.  I wondered if she was thinking about her sister.  Or was she thinking about Karl?

“Sam,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling as if the girl across the square wasn’t the only one listening.  I steadied my voice, “We don’t have to be against each other.  You don’t have to fight anymore.”  I couldn’t understand how she could even think about continuing to do Karl’s bidding after experiencing what life could be like away from him.

Sam jutted her chin out and said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  None of you do!”

“Then tell me.  What am I missing?” I asked.

Sam was quiet.  It was difficult to see her in the darkness, but she seemed to be hesitating.

I tried again.  “Sam, you can talk to me.  Did Karl make you do this?”  She didn’t respond.  “If you want out, if you want to fully escape from him, we can help you.  We’ll protect you.  You’ll never have to go back to him.”

“I want to go back to him,” she said sternly.

I started to feel lightheaded from the thick air and knew I needed to get out of here as soon as possible.

“You think you’re safe?”  Sam spoke so quietly, it was hard to hear her.  “You think Hoover is safe?  Nowhere is safe when Karl knows where
you
are.”

Her words chilled me.  Why had she enunciated “you”?  Why was I more important to him?  Was it because I defied him?  But the rest of us in the Underground had done that, too.  Why would he just be after me?  Before I could decide how to question her further, a creaking sound split the silence in the square.  Movement where there shouldn’t have been made me jump, scaring Snicket so that her whinny echoed loudly around the room.

The elderly woman at the table slowly shifted sideways, her chair creaking, and she fell forward like a rag doll.  Her limp body spilled from the chair, weak arms trailing after her, and she landed with a thump on the ground, half covering one of the still children who had been huddled at her feet.

Screw this, I thought, and yanked Snicket’s head around.  Sam or no Sam, I was getting the hell out of here.  Snicket and I tore back down the street the way we came, my heart pounding like a battering ram against my chest.  Snicket’s hooves slipped and slid as she clattered down the fake cobblestone streets of New York.

Now that my eyes were adjusted to the dark, I began to see everything I missed on my way in.  Bodies gathered inside restaurants, laid out inside stores and down the small alleys leading to restrooms and elevators.  Bodies draped across park benches, leaned against the base of lampposts and doorways.  A slight movement above me caught my eye.  A body dangled from the track of the roller coaster that zoomed through the building before shooting back outside.  The body rotated slowly, the rope around its neck creaking softly.

I tore my eyes away from it and urged Snicket faster and faster, until I saw a flood of white light ahead of me.  The door.  It barely opened in time for us to leap through into the blinding sunlight.  I gasped for fresh air as Snicket continued to tear down Las Vegas Boulevard, not caring where she was headed.  I couldn’t have been more grateful to be out of that hotel.

A small rider on a horse appeared suddenly on the street ahead of me.  It was Sam.  She must have exited the Big Apple from the back and taken a side street.  I bumped Snicket’s sides, encouraging her to go faster, and she did.  I never had a reason to ride her so hard before, and she rose to the occasion.  It made me wonder what she was used for before The Plague.  Maybe she’d been a racehorse.

We were gaining on Sam.  The pools of the Plantation House were half drained, exposing the pipes that created the stunning water shows.  The sun flickered off the Eiffel Tower at the Champs-Élysées Hotel across the street as we passed, but I didn’t take my eyes off Sam.  She turned around once in her saddle to see me coming up behind her and swerved to the right, her horse neatly jumping the curb of the median, sailing across the small mound of what used to be grass between two dead palm trees, and landing on the opposite side of the street.