Frightened Boy

Chapter Twenty-One - Sun and Moon

21. Sun and Moon

Escher rode hard out of Kingwood Forest and into the surrounding brush lands. He took Lux and I out and away from the train tracks and onto a faded trail that’d once been a busy street. It was so worn and cracked at this point that entire sections were impassible and had to be driven around with care.

Now that we were out of Banlo Bay, Escher seemed to relax a bit. He bit into a cigar he’d pulled from the truck and commandeered the jeep with a smile. Lux sat quietly, headphones pulled over his ears, and simply watched, expressionless, as what used to be Texas passed around him.

So, we’d lost another one. Guts, Grundel, Sam, Mal—maybe Whisper, and of course Erika. I didn’t like my chances for survival very much. I supposed it didn’t matter; I had been dead from the minute I saw the big red spot of blood on Erika’s blouse.

The plains surrounding Banlo Bay were flat and dry, an endless expanse. I thought about my two companions. They had history here. They’d explored, seen the world, and fought in wars.

Well, I had history too. How many rotted logs had I slept in during the Collapse? How many ditches had I hidden in?

Hoped I’d never be back here. Now, everything else I had was gone. If there was any future at all for me, this would be it.

Good riddance, future.

I looked at the back of Escher’s head. This man wanted to destroy Banlo Bay, though I wasn’t sure how. But he was wrong, wasn’t he? There were innocent people in that city. People like I was, weeks ago. Did I want Escher to succeed? If he did have a way to destroy the city, would I try to stop him? Little Brother was there. Little Brother deserved to die, after all. But surely not along with millions more.

Erika, what should I do?

I decided to settle for the second most random decision-maker I could think of. I pulled a coin out of my pocket, a meaningless relic from my old life. Heads, and I would try to save Banlo Bay. Tails, and I'd run the first chance I got.

I flipped it low: heads.

I flipped it again: heads.

Fucking Christ. Give me a break here, Erika.

I flipped it again: heads.

Fuck

*

Escher slowed the jeep to a halt as the sun began to fall on the grassy plains of the Red Zone. Traveling over the dangerous, uneven terrain was uncomfortable, tiring work. We bounced constantly about in the vehicle, each bump taking Escher’s foot off the pedal and crashing it back down. We had been following traces of a highway, but dust and cracks had obscured it for some miles, and we weren’t sure if we had driven off of it or not.

“Do you even remember where it was?” Lux asked Escher.

“Of course,” Escher said. “It will make itself known to me when the time comes.”

“You were delirious when you saw it first,” Lux said. “Maybe you imagined—” he stopped himself, realizing the futility of the argument.

Escher grinned.

“You should give this up,” Lux said. “It isn’t worth it. Besides, I don’t know if I can live with it.”

“You don’t have to live with it,” Escher said. “Only I do, and I think I’m going to enjoy it.”

“What if I try to stop you?” Lux asked.

“Then you’ll get stopped.”

My ears burned with nervousness at the conversation. Was this Project Epoch? I had to know. “So what’s Project Epoch? What are you two talking about?”

Escher turned to me and then looked at Lux. He grinned smugly around the fat cigar in his mouth. “Why don’t we stop here?” Escher said. “It’s been a long day, and I don’t think trying to navigate the jeep over these roads in the dark is going to get us very far.”

Escher pulled the jeep to a stop alongside a tall rocky crag, outside of view—not that it mattered. We hadn’t seen another person since we’d left Kingwood Forest.

An hour later, we found ourselves behind the shelter of the cliff, sitting around a small campfire on a warm night. Lux was cooking cans of dried foods that we’d manage to salvage from a ration pack in the jeep. I didn’t want to think about how ancient the food must be, and my hunger overtook my disgust.

“We might as well kick back and relax.” Escher said. “Frightened Boy, come tomorrow, you and Lux and I will likely be the only human beings alive in a 1,000-mile radius.”

“Why?” I asked instead.

“What do you mean, why? I think the idea is pretty clear at this point.” Escher grinned.

“I get it—reuniting a fractured mind, eliminating the cancer that is Little Brother, but how do you plan on killing everyone?”

“I really can’t tell you that, without telling you how I got here in the first place. Do you want to hear?”

“Yes, very much so,” I answered.

Escher leaned back and looked up at the waning sun and rising moon.