Eden, p.7
Eden, page 7
It’s all the small things, Dylan thought. The little changes, most of them unseen, adding up to something greater. That’s what makes this place feel strange.
Selina’s work lecturing in environmental science spilled over into concern at species depletion and the effects of human habitation and action. It was her passion, and the source of her frequent depressions. As they moved across the landscape she often went on ahead, so that she could pause while they caught up and spend time examining a tree or a plant, a track in the soil or a flower. She made hasty notes, then ran on with them, eyes wide with wonder at her findings.
“What have you seen?” Dylan asked as they moved down a long, gentle slope towards the wide valley floor.
“Lots of what I expected,” she said. “But also lots of things I’d never imagined might be here. Plant species that all but vanished from this landscape over the past couple of centuries are abundant again. The soil’s still more alkaline than it should be, but the whole place is purifying itself. Shedding itself of our touch.” She vaulted a fallen tree and Dylan slowed, climbed over, and ran hard to catch up.
“Check out the old man,” Gee said from behind him.
“I’m two years older than you, with a fucked knee,” Dylan said.
“Stay at home next time, Grandad, and we’ll call you when we’re done!” Gee chuckled.
“Check out the guy with a false hand stuck up his ass,” Dylan threatened, and everyone laughed.
Dylan caught up with Selina. “What else? Haven’t seen you this animated in ages.”
“It’s like it’s almost my perfect place!” Selina said, and he felt a warm flush at her upbeat tone. Her life was so saturated with facts and figures about humanity’s negative effects on the natural world that such joy was rare. Teaching about this and being down about things all the time was a selfless sacrifice, Dylan often said. She called it reality.
“But you don’t find it a bit weird?” Jenn asked. She jogged along beside the two of them, drawn in by their conversation. He knew that she felt the same as him, and the rest of the group were also unsettled by Eden.
“Very,” Selina said. “But wonderfully so.” She ran on ahead again, overtaking Aaron and looking around as they crossed a sloping forest floor. Large spreads of brambles reached to snag on their clothing, and Dylan already had a dozen scratches across his shins and calves that bloomed small spots of blood. He didn’t mind the feeling. He liked being tactile with nature and his surroundings, hands-on with the environments he passed through. Even here.
“Look,” Selina said, pointing at a tree trunk. They drew to a halt around her, breathing hard, grateful for the brief rest. Even with the sun dipping towards the western hills, it was still warm.
“What am I looking at?” Jenn asked.
“Scent markings,” Selina said. She crouched and moved closer, sniffing at the darkened bark, examining the ground around the tree’s base. “Pretty regular.”
“She’s sniffing pee,” Gee muttered.
“What made them?” Dylan asked.
“I think wolves.”
“Huh?” Cove looked around, as if expecting to see fleet-footed grey shapes watching them from the shadows or circling them, stalking, hunting.
“No wolves here for over a century,” Lucy said.
“Right,” Selina said. “Yet here we are.”
“Could be just wild dogs,” Aaron said. “Some might’ve been abandoned in here when Eden was formed, and maybe they’ve been mating and interbreeding over the decades.”
“Possible,” Selina said, but she sounded doubtful.
“Wouldn’t someone have had to put the wolves here?” Jenn asked. “They wouldn’t just pop up out of nowhere.”
Selina didn’t answer. She made a few notes, then stood and looked past them into the surrounding forest.
“Let’s move on,” Dylan said. “Sun’s hit the hills, and I want to make the far side of the valley before we camp.”
* * *
The forest canopy and vibrant tree growth restricted their wider view of the landscape as they followed the gentle slope downwards, but Dylan was confident in their direction. He watched the sun, Lucy checked their compass every half hour, and they made good progress. Talk of wolves thrilled him; although they could be dangerous animals, he didn’t think there would be any hungry wolves in Eden.
There were no paths to follow, and on occasion their progress was slowed by vast swathes of twisted and knotted undergrowth. They had not brought bush knives because they were passionate about damaging the environment as little as possible, so there was no possibility of hacking their way through. Instead they worked their way around, or backtracked and searched for an alternative route.
Selina didn’t appear to mind such delays. She was so used to moving with the team that remaining part of their group came naturally, but most of her focus was away from them and on their surroundings. Dylan stayed close to her, enjoying watching her enthusiasm come to the fore. She seemed to accept that humankind had set itself on a downward spiral, and that people like her could do very little to arrest its descent. When she was younger, she’d told Dylan, she had lived with grand dreams of making a difference.
Whatever they had between them was shadowed by her frequent bouts of depression, a product of her studies. He helped her through as best he could, and knew she appreciated his efforts. Here in Eden, he hoped she might rediscover some of that lost youthful confidence and positivity.
As evening approached they reached the bank of a river. Dylan called a rest and they drank and ate, chewing on energy bars and gels. Cove checked that the water was potable using a pocket kit, then they filled their water bladders and popped in purification tablets. Dylan took out his map, opened it up, tried to orientate where they were. Lucy stood beside him and turned slowly left and right until the map and compass were aligned, and Dylan adjusted for some local landmarks— a hilltop in the distance, a bend in the river a few hundred metres along.
Something was wrong.
“What is it?” Jenn asked.
“Should’ve hit a road alongside the river,” he said. He looked at his feet and brushed one foot back and forth through the long grass. The others were watching, listening.
“Eden’s been here long enough to swallow up roads,” Selina said. “We know that. We’ve seen it before, in much younger Zones.”
“Yeah, but where’s the river bridge?” Dylan said. He showed her the map, and after a few checks with compass and landmarks, Selina grunted.
“Yeah. Right. River bridge.”
The river wasn’t wide but it was faster flowing than the one they’d crossed to enter Eden. According to the map this was a tributary to that river, starting fifteen miles away up in the western hills and descending a series of waterfalls and fast-flowing sections before joining the main river six miles to the east.
“And a riverside rest stop, over there,” Dylan said pointing across the water. “Restaurant, car park, few shops.”
There was nothing.
“So let’s take a look,” Cove said. “Gotta get across the river anyhow.”
They walked upriver, as close to the bank as they could. They were on the flood plain here, there weren’t many trees, and it was nice to be out in the open. Dylan had always enjoyed the sound of water, but this roaring river made his feeling of subtle paranoia even deeper. Beneath its constant rumble, anything could be creeping up on them through the undergrowth.
He saw some of the others looking around as they walked. He caught Aaron’s eyes. He was alert and cautious, and that made Dylan feel a little better. Aaron had a military background, and though he hadn’t talked about it much to him, he had a confidence that made Dylan feel safe. Aaron blinked, frowned, and looked down to his feet.
“Found something,” he said. He knelt and pulled aside some grass and trailing bramble, revealing a rusted metal post protruding a few inches from the ground. Even though they’d only been inside Eden for a matter of hours, it was a strange sight. The first straight line they had seen in this place.
“Road barrier?” Cove asked.
“Maybe. Too rusted to tell.” Aaron tugged at the object. It didn’t move. “Buried pretty deep, though.”
“Looks like we know what’s happened to the road,” Lucy said. “We’re walking on it.”
* * *
It didn’t feel like they were following a road, but as they moved upriver they saw two other objects that suggested that was the case. Dylan mistook the first for a dead tree, swathed in climbing ivy and home to a pair of squirrels perched high up watching their approach. It was only as they drew closer that Gee pointed out the smashed bulb enclosure on top of the lamp post. It was the only part exposed, the surviving Perspex green with mould, and only the shape’s familiarity made it obvious. One of the squirrels scampered up the post and sat on the protruding head, as if to mock.
“Can’t see any others,” Aaron said, looking back and forth along the riverbank.
“No, but there’s that,” Lucy said. She jogged ahead of them towards a bank of undergrowth. Large pink flowers speckled one side, and a plant with tiny blue blooms twisted in and out of the mound. It was a gorgeous natural palette, but Lucy had seen something other than the flowers. As Dylan and the others followed, he tried to make out what that was.
“How the fuck did you see that?” Gee asked. “You got some robotic eye, or something?”
“Robot heart,” Cove said, a flippant but loaded comment. Lucy gave him the finger without looking away from whatever she’d seen.
“So you keeping us all in suspense?” Dylan asked.
“Look,” Lucy said. She pointed to one edge of the spread of foliage, then moved her arm slowly up. Dylan followed, and saw.
“Aerial?” he said.
“Reckon so. There’s an old car in there.”
“No way,” Gee said. He moved closer, kicked at some of the bushes, got his foot tangled and fell on his behind. Cove laughed. Aaron shoved Gee over onto his side, then helped him up.
“Come on, old man.”
There was nothing to be seen. It might have been an aerial, or perhaps simply a thin, bare stem of a dead plant. It was too far into the shrubbery to be reached, and Dylan felt the sudden urge to move on. They were wasting daylight.
“We need to cross this river,” he said. “I’d hoped part of the bridge might still be standing. But if it isn’t, we’ll have to go upriver until we find somewhere safe.”
“That might take hours,” Cove said. “Why don’t we swim?”
“You fucking serious?” Lucy snapped.
Harsh, Dylan thought, but he let it go. “No, we’re not swimming that,” he said. “You know we’re on our own in here, Cove. We don’t take stupid risks. Keep your ambitions reined in.”
“I could get to the other side and—”
“It doesn’t matter that you’re the best swimmer among us,” Dylan said, and nothing more was needed. Cove’s arrogance only went so far, and he always acknowledged Dylan as team leader. He pressed his lips together and nodded.
“Shall I lead the way?” Lucy asked.
“Follow the river,” Dylan said.
Moving out, already adjusting his plans for their intended stop that first night, Dylan glanced around as they went. He was looking for signs of Kat. She’d kept herself away from him for years, and he’d never forgotten the moment she left him. It was etched on his soul.
“Only a week,” she said. “Ten days, tops.”
“But you’ve not mentioned this trip before,” he said. “Not even a whisper. No maps, no discussions, no planning.” He was reaching, and he knew it. The coldness had been growing between them for a long time, an inexplicable distance that somehow seemed directly linked to the almost countless miles they had run, walked, sailed, driven and flown together on their adventures around the globe. Travelling everywhere together, they had never seemed more apart. “Have you told Jenn?”
“Of course I haven’t told her,” she said. Dylan knew there was something more happening here, and that admission proved it. If it was only ten days she’d have told Jenn, he thought, but even then he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Kat was leaving for good. A break, perhaps. A trial separation, enforced by a continent or two between them. But not forever.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” he said, and for a few seconds he thought her cool exterior was going to break, and that the iciness that had built between them would clear again, opaqueness melting so that they could reach through and touch each other like they always had before. Then her face hardened and her eyes grew distant.
“A week, ten days,” she said again, dismissing any hope of a discussion.
“I don’t believe you.”
Kat continued preparing her kit. She took her favourite rucksack, the one he’d bought her in Canada, packing it with running kit even though it was already full of memories.
“We could talk,” Dylan said. “Whatever’s been happening between us, we should have talked about it years ago. We can now. Properly.”
“There’s nothing,” Kat said, and she offered him a strange, sad smile before leaving the room. Dylan never forgot that smile, because he’d never seen its like on her face before, and it made him realise she had become a stranger. He could have gone after her. Could have tried to stop her leaving their rented apartment, talked to her, begged her to wait until whatever storms had swept over her troubled mind had passed. But he let her go, and he never saw her again.
Later, he realised that her final comment probably hadn’t referred to the distance that had been growing between them. As far as Kat was concerned, it was a summation of what was left of their relationship. He spent a long time struggling to understand what had gone wrong, sometimes blaming himself, sometimes wondering if Kat had been more disturbed than he’d ever understood. She must have been. She had disappeared from their lives.
He heard from her a couple of times over the next three years; brief, awkward phone calls during which neither of them had said much—her because she didn’t want to, him because he had no idea what to say. And then Kat vanished from their lives forever.
Now, it seemed that she had kept Jenn in her heart. However much he tried to think around those circumstances and construct excuses for her—and however pleased he was for Jenn—that was cold. Pure and simple: cold. Though their relationship had been complicated, time would surely have dulled the sharp edges of old arguments and resentments, and he could think of nothing he’d done to merit such treatment.
Although it appeared she might have lured them here, he wondered how Kat would react if they ran into her on some forested hillside.
Try as he might, he couldn’t decide what his own reaction might be.
9
Whoda thunk 6 kids in a boat could get into the Aleutian Zone? Rumours of storm=bullshit. They were fragged by the Zeds, mark my words.
@PottyBonkkers
“Hey,” Aaron said. “You okay?”
“Sure.”
“Feeling good?”
“Feeling strong.”
“Cool. Your dad seems tense.”
“Can you blame him?”
“I didn’t mean—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Hey, sorry,” Jenn said. “I didn’t mean to snap. Let’s just run.”
Jenn and Aaron were bringing up the rear. Lucy was a hundred metres ahead of them, Selina moving across the flood plain like a circling bird. Cove and Gee jogged together, and her dad was alone. Gaps had opened up between them, a natural spacing that often happened when they were moving across easier terrain. It allowed for some personal space, a comfortable pace, and sometimes it was good to run alone. Over the next three weeks there would be enough times when they were forced close together, and the opportunity to take advantage of a few moments of privacy was rarely missed. In such massive, wild, wide open spaces, Jenn and the others often experienced a unique claustrophobia once the group had been travelling for a few days or more. Cove’s brashness could get on Aaron’s nerves, and Selina would spend more and more time examining plants or insects on her own. Lucy and Jenn were usually tight though, and Jenn only hoped that might be the case again.
Jenn liked me-time as much as any of them. But the best me-time was with Aaron. They leapt a narrow ditch together, perhaps a dried stream or an old drainage channel beside the road they could no longer see. Their jump was almost synchronised. She loved Aaron’s grace, the way he flowed with the ground and air rather than against it. He moved like a dancer, not a soldier. After what he’d told her about his time in the Israeli military, and his traumatic reasons for leaving, she preferred to focus on this dancing dream.
“Maybe she made it out and just didn’t message you. Or did, and it got lost. Maybe she lost her phone or your number.”
“None of which makes it easier,” Jenn said. She hoped her dad would understand why she hadn’t said anything. It hadn’t been to hurt him. It had been to protect him.
“Your dad’ll be fine,” Aaron said.
“Maybe.”
They fell silent for a while, simply moving together, smooth, fluid, almost without effort. When they made love it felt like this too. Aaron was the first partner she’d had who understood that. The two of them fit together perfectly.
“This place, eh?” Aaron said. They were approaching a bend in the river where the valley sides closed in and the flood plain retreated, giving way once more to heavy forest. “Feels like it’s teasing us.”
“Teasing?” Jenn asked. She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. She felt watched, even now, but being teased was something else. It implied an intelligence.
“Yeah. Or playing with us.” He sounded more serious than usual, and when Jenn glanced at him and saw his troubled features, she tripped. He reached for her and grabbed her arm, but she went down on one knee, skidding on rough ground. She felt the damage seconds before the pain bit in. Standing, she saw the small tear in her tights and the cut on her knee.
