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  CHAPTER 16

  I QUICKLY DRIFT OFF TO SLEEP. Not surprisingly, my sleep is filled with nightmares, each one more terrifying than the last. The visions are incredibly vivid: snarling werebears surround me in an ever-tightening circle; a giant roc ensnares me in its talons and carries me to its mountaintop nest; fearsomely ugly ogres tie me to a spit and begin roasting me over a blazing fire. The dreams all have the same thing in common—I’m about to meet some horrifying doom. I sure hope that my as yet unrevealed Power doesn’t turn out to be precognition!

  I wake up in the middle of the ogre vision, my heart racing and my body covered in sweat. Opening my eyes to utter blackness only adds to my terror. For a few panic-filled moments, I have no idea where I am and why I can’t see anything. I only barely manage to catch myself before I let loose a scream for help.

  I force myself to draw in slow, deep breaths of cold night air. They were only dreams, I remind myself. None of it is real. Not yet, at least.

  I close my eyes again—the darkness behind closed eyelids is far preferable to the blackness of the forest night. Slowly, my breathing and heart-rate return to normal.

  I have no idea whether the night is drawing near an end or is still in its infancy. There’s simply no way to tell, even when my eyes were open. Though the darkness was utter and complete, I’m guessing there’s probably enough illumination out on the road from the moon and stars for me to travel by if I choose to. It’s tempting to forge onward right now rather than going back to sleep and risking more night terrors, but I push the idea away. Walking exposed on the highway when there may be hunters around who can see in the dark as easily as the day would be more than foolish—it would be potentially suicidal. At least in the daylight I have the chance to spy any dangers before they see me.

  To give myself at least a chance to fall back to sleep without more nightmares, I need something to focus my thoughts on. I try thinking about my friends and family, but those thoughts are filled with too much sadness and longing. I need something more neutral, something that will still require a strong degree of focus. Finally, I have it. I begin picturing myself flowing through various moves and countermoves with my machete, just like Sergeant Moss sometimes had us do in our training. He told us that vividly imagining ourselves going through the movements was almost as beneficial as actually doing them. I’m not sure how much I buy that—practice makes perfect is what people always say—but I’ve got nothing to lose. If I can sharpen my skills and fall into an untroubled sleep at the same time, I’m all for it.

  Something must have worked, because the next time I open my eyes daylight is filtering down through the trees. I sit up and brush away the dead leaves clinging to my foil blanket. The morning air is still quite chill, and I’m a little reluctant to unwrap myself from my covering. I know I’ll warm up once I get moving, so I push myself up to my feet and remove the blanket. Shivering, I quickly fold it up and shove it back inside my emergency pouch, then begin making my way back toward the road.

  No longer concerned about leaving marks that might show my passage, I use my machete to hack through the thickest parts of the undergrowth. The effort quickly warms me, and before I know it, I’m back out onto the blacktop, basking in the morning sunlight.

  The sun has barely crested the top of the tall ridge behind me, telling me the day is still young. The air hasn’t had a chance to warm up much yet, so I keep my sweatshirt zippered up as I begin my trek northward, walking briskly to generate body heat.

  My stomach rumbles with hunger, but I decide to wait at least a little while before breakfasting on one of my energy bars. With luck, I’ll find some water I can wash it down with.

  Remembering my idea to find a container to carry some water with me, I keep one eye on the shoulder of the blacktop, looking for a discarded beer or soda can. Failing to find a can, maybe I’ll come across a plastic bag of some sort that can hold a bit of water.

  I walk for an hour or so before I spot something much better than a can or bag. Lying half hidden in the weeds along the road is a plastic water bottle, complete with a twist on cap. As I bend to retrieve the bottle, I offer a silent thanks to the long ago litterbug who was thoughtful enough to put the cap back on before tossing his trash into the brush.

  The inside of the bottle looks clean and clear, and I can find no sign of any cracks or holes. I see no reason why it shouldn’t hold water just as well as the day it was filled by the distributor. Now all I need to do is find a stream. Based on yesterday’s experience, I don’t expect it will be long before I come across one.

  And it’s not. Less than half an hour after finding the bottle, I come to the biggest stream I’ve seen so far. This one tumbles along the floor of a ravine wide enough to require the highway’s builders to construct a concrete bridge across it, rather than simply using a culvert like I’ve seen before. The water flows at least twenty-five or thirty feet below me through one of the twin arches in the span.

  From my perch on the edge of the bridge, I study the ravine carefully, searching for any sign of danger before I climb down. Everything seems as it should, so I scramble down the sides of the gully, using the roots and stems of small bushes for handholds to keep from slipping. At the bottom, I kneel on the bank under the cover of a leafy shrub and drink several gulps of the cold, refreshing water. Once my thirst is slaked, I dunk my newly acquired bottle into the stream, letting the bottle fill to about the three-quarter mark. I screw the cap back on and shake the bottle vigorously, hoping to clean out any unseen dirt or germs. I pour the water out and repeat the process twice more. The water I spill out seems clean and clear, so I fill the bottle one last time and cap it for good.

  It’s very pretty down here and fairly sheltered, so I find a suitable rock at the edge of the brook and sit down to eat. If this was summertime, I’d take off my shoes and sit with my feet dangling into the water while I munched on the energy bar. It’s much too cool for that, though, so I keep my feet up on the bank instead.

  Once again, I limit myself to only half a bar, nibbling it slowly. When I’m finished, I take several swallows from my water bottle and then hold it in the stream to refill it to the top. The liquid in my stomach helps me feel fuller and more satisfied than the bar alone would.

  I climb back up to the level of the road and peer cautiously in both directions before stepping out onto the blacktop. Crossing the bridge is going to leave me more exposed than I like, but the only alternative is to ford the stream below and climb up on the other side. I don’t relish the idea of walking through the icy water, nor do I want to chance slipping on any of the algae-covered rocks I saw under the surface. I could twist an ankle, or worse. The bridge is the better alternative, I believe. If I run across the fifty yard span, I should be out in the open for less than ten seconds.

  I make sure my pouch is fastened firmly around my waist and pull my machete from its sheath, just in case. After taking another careful look around, I sprint out onto the bridge, racing as fast as I can. When I reach the other side, I duck into the trees and wait in the concealment of the shadows for several minutes. Satisfied that no eyes have seen me and that I’m still alone, I set back out along the edge of the road.

  The highway continues to climb up and down, but the ascents are longer and steeper than the descents. By midday, the ocean is no longer just a hundred feet below me—it’s now more than twice that. The landscape on the right side of the road is changing as well. The slope of the hills has become less steep, and the woods have grown less dense. I don’t know if the thinning of the forest is due to the changing topography or perhaps some difference in the soil.

  As I trudge northward, I’m actually thankful for all the curves and inclines. If I had to look at long sections of road stretching to the horizon across a flat expanse of land, the enormity of the task in front of me would probably seem far more overwhelming and impossible. This way, I can measure my progress one bend at a time, one hill at a time. Even so, I have to fight to keep from lettin
g my thoughts give in to the hopelessness of my journey.

  At the bottom of a mild descent I come across another old mudslide, but this one is nowhere near as large as the one that almost cost me my life. It doesn’t even completely cover the asphalt, so I don’t have to climb over the debris. Still, the unblocked left shoulder of the highway brings me uncomfortably close to the edge of the cliff, so I pick my steps very carefully until I’m past the pile and back onto the far side of the road.

  The hours pass by slowly as I wend my way north, while the late autumn sun makes its own journey westward across the sky behind me. I don’t have to turn around to see its progress—the changing angle of my shadow in front of me tells me where the sun is.

  Somewhere around mid-afternoon, I round a bend and come upon a gently curving stone bridge several hundred yards long. A deep, steep-sided crease in the hilly coastline left the engineers who built this road no choice but to construct a bridge across the chasm. This one is far longer and higher than the one under which I ate my breakfast.

  It’s an amazing looking piece of construction. There’s at least a dozen tall stone towers ending in graceful aches beneath the highway. The bridge is so attention grabbing that for the first few moments I don’t even notice that the center section of the span has collapsed.

  CHAPTER 17

  MY HEART SINKS. From where I stand, it looks like there’s no way across the gap in the bridge. I turn my gaze inland. The fold in the topography is deep and cuts far back into the hillside. Climbing down the sheer sides of the ravine and then back up would be much too dangerous, which means I’d have to go around it. I can’t tell for certain, but it looks like I’d have to travel a mile or more out of my way, through the woods and up and over the hill, before turning back down to the road on the other side.

  That’s a detour I’d prefer not to take. I decide to make a closer examination of the broken section of road first. Maybe there’s a way across the break that I can’t see from here.

  Once again, I carefully check my surroundings before exposing myself to view out on the bridge. I don’t see anything moving anywhere, and the only sound I hear is the faint crashing of the ocean upon the rocks far below me to my left.

  I stride swiftly out onto the bridge, keeping to the center of the roadway just in case the edges are weaker than I think. I have no idea what might have caused the center of the span to collapse, so I have to be careful.

  I slow my pace as I near the gap. The bridge seems sturdy enough so far, but that might not be the case near the end of the section that has fallen away. The gap is bigger than I thought, thirty or forty feet wide, at least. So far, I don’t see any way across for me, but I need to get closer to be sure.

  When I’m about five or six feet from the edge, I drop down onto to all fours and crawl closer. Crawling allows me to spread my weight better upon the blacktop, which is lined with narrow cracks here. It also gives me a much lower silhouette for predators to spot.

  I creep as close to the edge as I dare and peer down. The height is dizzying. As I lean forward and place more weight on my hands, a piece of crumbling asphalt breaks off under my right hand and goes tumbling down into the chasm. I quickly back up a foot or so.

  As I feared, there doesn’t seem to be any way across, but I’m not ready to give up quite so quickly. I can see a couple of places where the abutments below extend out farther than the broken roadway. In one spot about ten feet below me, a narrow span of concrete actually connects to the other side. Maybe I can climb down and cross that way.

  I move to the other side of the road to give myself a look at the connected section from a better angle, trying to judge just how solid it might be. It’s not very thick at all. I have no way of knowing if it would support my weight. If I decide to try it, I definitely need to test it first, preferably before I even make the dangerous climb down.

  I glance around, thinking. A crumbled piece of blacktop near the edge catches my eye. It looks pretty heavy—if I can break it off, maybe I can use it to test the strength of the connection.

  Working very carefully, I push and pull upon the slab of asphalt, loosening it from the roadway. Finally, it breaks free and I manage to pull it back towards me before it can go careening down into the ravine. I stand up. Bending at my knees, I lift the chunk of asphalt. It’s even heavier than I thought—lifting it is not easy—but that will make my test even better.

  I carry it back to the other side and place it down above the still-connected piece of the span. My arm muscles need a brief rest before I can trust myself to toss it over the side with any accuracy. When I feel ready, I pick it up again and move as close to the edge as I deem safe before carefully heaving it forward. My aim is good, and it smashes into the abutment exactly where I wanted it to.

  In the silence, the crash of the heavy chunk of asphalt onto the concrete seems unnaturally loud. For a moment, nothing happens, and then with a low groaning sound, the concrete splits and goes tumbling down into the ravine. The resulting vibrations reach up to where I’m standing, so I quickly retreat a few steps from the edge. So much for my bridge across—I guess I’m going to have to make the detour through the woods after all. I’m sure glad I tested the spot before trying to cross. There’s a good chance it wouldn’t have held my weight, and instead of the slab of blacktop hurtling down into the abyss, it could have been me.

  Reluctantly, I turn around and begin heading back the way I came. I’ve gone only twenty or thirty yards when something steps out of the trees onto the beginning of the bridge, cutting off my escape.

  The creature is man-like in form, except for the tiny fact that he has two heads. And he’s gigantic, too, at least twelve feet tall and three or four times thicker in girth than an ordinary man. His huge, hairless twin heads are hideously misshapen, as if they were crudely fashioned of paper mache rather than skin and bone. Near the center of each gruesome face sits one big, bloodshot eye.

  I’ve read about cyclops in books, but they’ve never sported two heads like this one. I don’t know if this thing is simply a mutant or if it came through from There through an Anomaly, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the hungry way the beast is looking at me, and the two giant wooden clubs—made from tree branches thicker than my torso—that he’s brandishing as if they were mere twigs.

  I curse my bad luck. Had I encountered this monster anywhere else but out here on the bridge, I’m certain I could have outrun him and escaped. Here, though, with the cyclop’s long arms and clubs able to cover the entire width of the span, I don’t see any way past him.

  I look down at my machete. The blade seems pretty puny all of a sudden. I’m not sure how much effect it will have on the monster’s thick hide, even if I can avoid the menace of those swinging clubs.

  The creature lumbers toward me, his twin mouths twisted into what I guess are hungry grins. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry—he knows as well as I do that I have no way to get past him.

  My heart is hammering in my chest as I back up, staying just out of reach of the deadly clubs, desperately trying to come up with an idea. Glancing behind me, I see that I have only twenty or thirty feet before I reach the edge of the broken bridge. I wonder if there’s some way I could scramble down far enough to be out of the cyclop’s reach. If I can, maybe I could simply wait him out.

  From what I remember of looking down into the gap, that’s a long shot. I’d either fall to my death, or not be able make it far enough down to avoid his long arms. Attempting to climb into the broken section has to be a last resort. I need to try something else.

  I don’t think there’s any way I can kill the thing—he’s simply too big—but maybe I can wound him enough to distract him so I can race by, like with the giant lizard. Even that seems a forlorn hope. The only part of him I’ll be able to reach with my machete is one of his legs, and they’re as thick as tree trunks—and they look almost as solid.

  I’m getting dangerously close to the end of the bridge, so
I have to try something. I feint to my left and then dart toward his right leg, my machete swinging out in front of me. The blade connects with his shin with a solid thunk, but sinks only an inch or two into his tough hide. I’m simply not strong enough to cut farther.

  One of the giant clubs swings toward my head, so I throw myself into a reverse somersault, ignoring the pain of the rough asphalt against my already scraped back and head. The club whistles a few inches above me. The wind from its passing feels like the blast of a hurricane.

  I scramble back to my feet. My blow has had no effect on the monster. I have only another yard or two behind me before I go tumbling into the ravine.

  From out of nowhere, an arrow buries itself in the cyclops’ right eye. An instant later, a second arrow punctures his left eye. The creature roars in pain, his screams so loud I cover my ears. He drops the clubs and reaches for his eyes, but his huge hands have trouble grabbing the arrows. Pulling them out would probably not help anyhow. Still bellowing in agony, he stumbles blindly toward the edge of the bridge, thrashing his arms wildly. A moment later, he loses his balance and plummets over the side, still screaming as he hurtles down into the ravine and crashes onto the rocks below with a thud I can hear from here.

  I turn around, seeking some sign of my rescuers, but I see no one. Whoever shot the arrows must be hidden in the woods at the other end of the bridge. Hitting the cyclops in the eyes from that distance was an amazing show of accuracy.

  “Please, show yourself,” I shout, my voice coming out a bit hoarse after not having spoken at all for two days. “Please, I want to thank you. You saved my life.”

  I stare into the trees, but nothing happens. It seems impossible that one person could have fired the arrows in such rapid succession, so there must be at least two of them back there. I don’t understand why they would save me and then not reveal themselves. I want to do more than thank them—I desperately want some companionship and aid for the rest of my journey.