Exile: The Book of Ever

21: A Wolf's Dinner

On Sunday, exactly one week since leaving Bountiful, they celebrated the Sabbath in a small clearing at mid-morning. The sun glanced in at head height as Acel blessed and broke biscuits of hardtack into bite-sized pieces and passed them around. Jared blessed a small cup of water poured from his water bottle and passed it. His eyes fixed on Ever's hands, the fingers fidgeting nervously, as he said the prayer.

The terrain was growing increasingly hilly, and after half a day's walk they finally broke out into a wide clearing sparsely populated with medium-sized pines.

"This is it," Rolan said suddenly, taking out his rolled up map. They gathered around as he traced a thick line in the center of the map with one dirty fingernail. He smiled. "Interstate Route 93. Look at what you're standing on."

Jared looked to his feet and realized that beneath a thin layer of humus and pine needles was the roughened surface of an ancient road. He scraped at it with his boot to make sure. Looking northward, he could see now that the clearing was in fact an overgrown corridor running through the forest. The remains of one of the Old People's enormous roadways. This one was even more overgrown than most.

Rolan trotted forward, looking from side to side.

"There should be—a-hah!" Crouching down, he started tugging at something large in a tangle of branches and dead wood. After a moment he raised something as tall as he was: a rusted metal strut with a metal sign attached. The face of the sign was rusted and peeling, but Jared could just make out most of a "9" and half of a "3."

"We can follow this north for—oh, I'd say another two or three days at least," explained Rolan.

Acel took the map from him for a moment and studied it.

"This road runs almost due north to south. We could cross the old border into the Maine sooner if we went northeast," he said.

Rolan nodded.

"That's true, but as I see it that presents two problems. One, we'd be hiking through mostly virgin forest. It might end up taking us twice as long. And two, we want to stay as far away from the coast as we can."

"Marmacks?" Acel asked, glancing up at Rolan. Rolan shook his head. Swinging his pack off, he dug around in it for a moment and finally pulled out another sheaf of papers and seated himself on the ground. After a moment, Jared sighed softly and sat down with him, followed by Ever and Acel.

"I'm beginning to think," Ever said, "that we should have spent more time planning our route before we left Bountiful."

"Understatement of the age," said Jared. Acel smiled grimly.

"It's my fault," Rolan said, pausing. "I was supposed to—there wasn't enough time, you see, and I hadn't quite finished all of the work—"

"You were supposed to what, Rolan?" asked Acel gently.

"Bishop Royce asked me to research the best route and keep all of you informed, involve you in the process. I got distracted, and then the attacks started—"

Jared noticed a tremble in Rolan's hand.

"It's okay, Rolan," he said. "Everyone did the best they could. Just tell us now." Ever met his eyes briefly. Her look was unreadable.

"Well," he said, returning to shuffling maps and charts, "the problem is that there's a site along the coast somewhere that was...disproportionately affected by the events of the Fall. A power station of some sort. Somehow when the Fall happened, something about that place increased its effects..."