After the End Read online

  WE RACE ACROSS THE FROZEN TUNDRA, CHASING the ghosts in the fire and listening for the danger from the sky. Now that we have left the woods, there is no cover. It is mid-April. In just a month the snow will be gone and the landscape will transform overnight from the brown and white of tundra and snow to the green and purple of thick grasses and wildflowers. But for now, we are a moving target against the crystalline fields veined with frozen streams.

  I don’t yet know which path we’ll take to the ocean, but it doesn’t matter. I have a stop to make before I leave clan territory.

  Beckett and Neruda slow as we near the emergency shelter. They’ve been here before and sense where we are going. They stop at the boulder marking the edge of our clan’s boundary, and I leap off the sled to clear the snow from an indentation at the base of the boulder. Shoving my mittens into my pockets, I scrabble with my fingertips to dig out the edge of the loose sod. I feel the tarp and, grasping it with both hands, pull it back to expose the trapdoor.

  Whit made the door spring-activated so even the smallest of the children could access the shelter if necessary. All it takes is a light pull on the ring and the heavy plank swings upward, revealing a wooden staircase descending into the dark. I walk down a few steps and then detach the lantern from its hook under the cave ceiling. Using my flint, I light the wick, although I don’t really need its glow: I know this place by heart. Nome, Kenai, and I check it once a month, year-round, to make sure that scavengers haven’t discovered our stores. We restock the dried meats and make sure the worms haven’t gotten the rest.

  We are taught where this shelter is as soon as we can drive a dogsled. “Just in case,” our parents tell us. We all know what the unspoken “case” is. Attack by brigands. Discovery by survivors of the war. The shelter has hidden us the handful of times that Whit has Read brigands nearby. It’s been an integral part of our security since the beginning.

  What we never planned on was an abduction of the entire clan. So there is no one here to meet me. No one to wait for. Only supplies to pick up before I flee.

  I take one of the empty bags and fill it with enough provisions for the dogs and me. Three . . . no, four days of food, unhooking dried meat and fish from where it hangs from hooks in the ceiling, well out of reach of rodents. Dried beans that can be hydrated in melted snow. A cooking pot. My sled already holds survival basics in case I get trapped while hunting: furs and a tiny caribou-skin pup tent. But for three days in the outdoors, I take one of the winter tents: its white-cured leather will be invisible against the snow.

  And finally, in case I am captured, I bring insurance. Something valuable I can use to negotiate with brigands.

  I make three trips between the shelter and the sled before I am finally ready. Ready for what? I think, realizing I have no idea where I’m going.

  Until I get a sign of where my clan was taken, the best I can do is try to find Whit. His captors have got to be part of the same group of brigands. I peer up at the sun—already far to the west—and then at the shadow the boulder casts in the snow. I have at least three hours until sundown. In midsummer we have twenty hours of functional light, as compared to the short five-hour days of winter. I know the earth’s calendar like I know my own body’s. Today I have time to travel a good distance before the sun sets.

  There is no time to lose. The temperature will drop with sunset, and although I have my arsenal against the cold, I will need every advantage I can get in a new terrain. “Hike!” I yell to the dogs. Unnecessarily. They are already running and we are once again off across the white expanse, heading south. Across the boundary. Out of the protection of my clan and into the wild.

  * * *

  We run for an hour before I attempt to Read.

  Serenity. Your connection with the earth. A quiet spirit is essential. I hear Whit’s words in my mind, complete with his clipped, practical tone.

  Serenity. Not quite my frame of mind at the moment. Panic, maybe. Insecurity . . . fear, definitely. It’s going to be a far stretch for me to reach serenity anytime soon.

  I have no choice. The only thing directing me is my general knowledge that the ocean is south. I’m going to need more than that, or I could lose precious hours: Whit was already at the ocean when I saw him in present-time. And my clan was taken by air. I am moving at a snail’s pace compared to them. They might not even be in Alaska anymore. They might not even be alive. Reality slams me like a pickax.

  Stop! I reprove myself, clenching my fists against the sled rail. In the distance, I spot a flock of Canada geese flying toward us in a perfect V. They’re flying north, returning to Alaska in their spring migration. I adjust our trajectory slightly to align with their path so that we’re pointing due south, and then yell, “Easy!”

  The dogs slow down, and at “Whoa,” they come to a stop. I step off the sled and lean down to wipe the snow from the ground. Pulling my opal over my head, I press it to the earth. I think of my father and get nothing in response.

  Fear courses through me. This has never happened. Does it mean he’s dead, I wonder, or just too far away?

  I change the image in my mind to Whit and feel a sudden surge of anxiety. The fact that Whit is horribly worried shouldn’t be surprising, but I respond with my own fear. I jump back onto the sled and yell, “Hike,” and we are off, sprinting southward to the sea.

  There are fifteen hours of daylight, and that is how long we run each day, resting enough to eat four meals, and stopping at twilight to pitch camp. The first two nights I sit outside in the darkness, watching the stars. On the third, I am rewarded with the aurora borealis. Its colorful lights shimmer like silk banners.

  I have felt the earth a dozen times a day and cannot connect with my father. No emotions resonate through my fingertips as I press the sodden dirt with my opal. But now I stand under the aurora stock-still with my arms raised and my opal clenched in one hand and Read the wind. I ask if my father is still alive, and suddenly, in the middle of the barren tundra, the smell of a campfire reaches my nose along with the odor of cooking meat. And I know that, wherever he is, my father is alive and being fed. I fold my arms across my chest, hugging myself, and am dizzy with relief. I smile as I watch the colors above me explode in pulses of blue and green. I return to the tent feeling comforted. And for the first time since I left our territory, buried deep under furs in my tent between the two huskies, I sleep well. I sleep deeply.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  8

  MILES

  I’M DROPPING OFF SOME LETTERS WITH MY DAD’S secretary when I hear him yelling again.

  “I don’t know why she’s so important, but she is! Apparently the whole deal hangs on her. . . . I don’t care what you tell your men! Say that she’s an industrial spy with information on the drug I want. That’s near enough to the truth. Just get as many people onto the street as you can!”

  Dad’s secretary looks up at me and rolls her eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “He’s been agitated for the last few days. I guess some deal he really wants is falling apart.” She picks up her coffee mug and heads for the break room.

  Dad has lowered his voice, so I scoot closer to his door.

  “My informant says she’s probably coming from Alaska by boat,” he says. “Could be landing anywhere along the western seaboard. Everyone and their mother will be after this girl. We have to get her before our competitors do. Hell, I’d comb the streets myself, but you’re the security expert, so I’m trusting you to find her.”

  A manhunt, I think. Now this sounds interesting.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  9

  JUNEAU

  ON THE THIRD DAY I BEGIN NOTICING EVIDENCE of brigands. Until now, the hu
skies and I have managed to elude any signs of life. Yesterday we came within sight of a paved road. I avoided it, steering the dogs away and putting a sight-blocking ridge between us and that relic of a dead civilization.

  But today, as we near the coast, we are forced to cross one road, and then another. Seeing no sign of humanity, I resign myself to following along it at a distance. After a while a small structure comes into view—a type of complex built in glass and wood with two plinth-like machines standing in front of it. I immediately recognize what it is from the photos in our books: a gas station—this one obviously abandoned. A fuel reserve would have been cached beneath the pumps and used to fill cars with gasoline. Although the sight fills me with a sort of excited horror, I can’t help but smile. It’s my first real glimpse of the world outside the one where I’ve spent my entire life.

  The sides of the building are plastered with weathered artwork—advertisements, I remind myself, rolling the word around in my mouth like honeycomb candy—that are half falling off and rusted through.

  The dogs pay no attention to the place as we speed by, and once it has disappeared from my vision, I breathe my relief. I have seen the outside world and nothing bad has happened.

  As we pass a couple of other abandoned buildings—one with a burned-out wheel-less car parked eternally outside—my confidence grows. Brigands aren’t hiding behind every corner, as I have always imagined. Maybe the ones who kidnapped my clan are the sole survivors. Maybe I will be able to not only find my clan but somehow set them free.

  As this flash of hope pierces like a sunbeam through my mind’s dark clouds, I see something else on the horizon. Something moving. Coming along the road toward us, just a speck in the distance but growing larger by the second. “Whoa!” I yell, and steer the dogs off the road behind one of the patches of fir trees that has begun to regularly punctuate the treeless expanse of tundra.

  The dogs flop flat on the ground, panting, and I spread the white skin tent over the sled, making us invisible against the snow. I huddle behind and watch as the car grows larger by the moment. It resembles one of the army vehicles from the EB—like a Jeep but twice as big, and bright red like a field poppy.

  My heart skips a beat. The car is brand-new. Not thirty years old. Not rusted out or cobbled together from spare parts like the brigand vehicles that Kenai draws to illustrate Nome’s wild stories.

  This car looks like it was built recently. But I know that’s impossible. How could a car factory exist in a dying world? Unless the brigands have organized themselves. But even so . . .

  The car speeds past our hiding place, and I get a glimpse of its passengers: a man drives and a woman sits next to him. They’re laughing. And behind them in the backseat is a child.

  They don’t look like desperate survivors of an apocalypse; they look like a happy family.

  I crouch, stunned, as the car disappears into the distance. After a minute, I shake myself out of my confusion and force myself to move, pulling the tent off the sled, stowing it, and directing the huskies to run. I don’t have time to waste.

  As the sled lurches forward, I automatically reach for my fire opal. I feel lost, but my amulet reminds me that no matter what strange things I find in this new world, the Yara will be there to guide me. And a grain of comfort settles in my heart.

  We are almost to the coast. I can feel the change in the air and smell it in the wild, briny gusts of wind. The dogs’ pace quickens as they speed toward this unknown factor. They’ve never been outside our territory either, being the third generation of dogs raised in our clan. But from the joyful wiggle in their strides, I suspect that knowledge of the sea is embedded deep inside their psyche.

  We reach the top of the ridge, and I leap off the sled to view the magnificent vista spread before us. The ocean in all its wide wild grandeur. The stories I heard and photos I studied didn’t do it justice. Its wind-whipped waves extend all the way to the horizon, going on forever, while shrieking white birds dip and dive over its surface. Tears spring to my eyes, and I feel the thrill of discovery course through my veins.

  Then my gaze lowers and the world slams to a stop. I manage to keep my knees locked for a moment but then crumple to the ground. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything but kneel in the snow and look at the impossible.

  Beneath me lies a city. It is not in ruins. It isn’t decimated by war and poisoned by radiation. It is a thriving city with massive glass buildings glistening in the late-afternoon sun. People—not dangerous brigands, but normal-looking people—are walking down its streets. Cars that look brand-new—more rounded than the ones in the EB—are driving down the roads and are parked along their sides. This is not a postapocalyptic wasteland. Where am I? What is going on?

  My throat clenches so tightly that I cough and then gasp in the cold air. My body is numb with shock and my mind a jumble—thoughts stumbling and tripping and then stopping altogether. I sit. And watch. And try to understand.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  10

  MILES

  I JUMP BACK FROM THE DOOR AS DAD COMES stomping out of his office. “Son, were you waiting to see me?” he asks distractedly.

  “Nope, just dropping off the mail,” I say, and hold up a couple of envelopes as proof.

  “I’m leaving in a few hours for that weekend conference in Denver that I couldn’t get out of,” he says, already walking away. “And after that, there’s some business elsewhere I have to take care of, so I’m not sure when I’ll be back. But I’ll be checking in with you, and I asked Mrs. Kirby to stay at the house.”

  “But Dad!” I protest. “I’m eighteen freaking years old. I don’t need a babysitter.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel about eight.

  Dad turns and gives me the eye. “It is precisely because you are eighteen years old that you need a chaperone. I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment. I don’t need you getting into any more trouble.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say, but he’s already gone.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  11

  JUNEAU

  WE SPEND THE NIGHT ON THE TOP OF THE RIDGE, watching, waiting. I want to understand this city before I set foot in it. The sleeping dogs heat the tent with their warm breath, and I lay half-in, half-out with the tent flaps tucked in around me to keep in the warmth. I am not cold. There is a flame burning inside me since my clan disappeared, and this new mystery has made it burn hotter.

  I chew on a piece of venison jerky as I watch the city. Near the waterfront a forest of tall buildings crowd together, growing sparser and shorter as they spread outward from the city center. On the edges of the town are groups of houses dotted with small parks and supply centers. I try to remember what they’re called . . . shops.

  During the few hours before dusk, a number of cars leave the city and head toward the outskirts. I watch as some drive directly to the houses and others stop first at the shops. The people—tiny as ants from my vantage point—emerge with rolling metal carts full of supplies, pile them into the cars and, once home, transfer them into the houses.

  My mind struggles with what my eyes are seeing. People—regular people—are going to work and then coming home to their families. Children play happily in front of their houses, bundled in brightly colored snowsuits. There seems to be plentiful fuel (I count at least ten gas stations), and supplies appear to be abundant.

  I try to push my emotions aside—confusion, shock, fear—and use every ounce of rationale I possess. I cannot let myself panic. If I can’t keep a cool head, I might not be able to find my people. And the thought of being alone in the world is one that I’ve had to repeatedly dismiss. The idea is too frightening to consider. I have to remain
focused on my goal: finding Whit. Then—together—we will find our clan.

  Too many questions are darting through my head. How can this one city have escaped the nuclear catastrophe of World War III? Could it have completely rebuilt itself in three short decades? And if this city survived, did others, too? I watch boats enter and leave the port. They have to be going somewhere.

  What I’m seeing is an impossibility: a thriving metropolitan civilization only three days away from our village. I pull my fire opal from my neck and hold it in my palm against the ground. Still no connection with my father. And the wind is giving me nothing at all.

  I push away a rising sense of alarm. I’ve never been away from my father—my clan—for more than a day or two on the odd camping trip with my friends. And those times, I enjoyed the solitude, knowing everyone was safe and sound in their yurts. Unlike now. I breathe deeply and try to shed the alarming thoughts crowding in on me.

  I change my focus to Whit. I imagine that face I know as well as my father’s, and the Yara shows me his emotions. Fear. Confusion. If I can’t feel my father and I can feel Whit, maybe it means he’s still nearby.

  Although the tiny people below don’t look threatening, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I’d rather watch them like I do my prey when hunting. Observe their patterns. Understand them before making a move. I don’t dare light a fire here on the ridge, else I would use the firepowder to ask the Yara where Whit is. I must wait until tomorrow to use a less conspicuous way of Reading his location.

  I scoot back into the tent, securing the flaps tightly behind me, and settle between my layers of furs, listening to the sound of the huskies’ sleeping puffs and the alien sound of civilization in the distance.

  The sun has just risen. The city sleeps. I have hidden the sled and bulkier supplies on the outskirts of the city, taking only one large rucksack that I carry strapped across my back. Beckett and Neruda walk protectively on either side of me as we cross through the outlying housing areas.