Michael Ford - Lost Horizon

THE RULES KEEP USalive.

Hed heard it a hundred times, so why hadnt he listened? Why hadnt he stayed put like he was supposed to?

Dad? Kobi whispered. He cut a path through coarse grass as tall as his shoulders, using his machete, then climbed a tangle of roots twisting out from the enormous trunk of a cedar. His eyes darted around the mutated undergrowth, searching for movement or for a sign his father might have come this way. There was nothing.

I scout ahead; you stay exactly where you are until I come back and give you a signal. Its how we move safely. Got it?

Kobi had begged his dad to take him along, to let Kobi go with him out into the Wastelands, train him how to survive. Im nine years old, Dad, hed said. Im ready.

Hed been so stupid.

Kobi raised an arm to push through a curtain of leafy vines.

Examine everything. Never move without looking.

Kobi froze.

Tiny serrated teeth edged along the lengths of the vines. The Waste had mutated them into flesh-eaters, Kobi realized. He peered up. High among the branches, a massive gull was trussed up inside a crisscrossing prison of tendrils. Acid sap dripped slowly over the carcass, dissolving it one feather at a time. Kobi saw a rib cage, melted flesh, a gleaming eyeball. He remembered what his dad had said: the ivy Chokerplants werent as deadly as the ones that lashed out from underground, but if they got you they killed you a lot slower.

Trembling, Kobi crouched beneath the Choker. He glanced up at the sharp-bladed feelers, inches from brushing his back. He stumbled.

Never rush, Kobi!

Kobi screwed his eyes shut for a moment. His heart pounded like a drum in his ears, and he worried the feelers would sense the tremors.

After a minute, he moved off again, taking each step with careful precision, until he was finally out of the Chokers reach. Dad? Kobi called out as loud as he dared. Where are you?

He wanted to shout, to scream so his dad would hear him. But that would be suicide. Anything might hear. Chokers, wasps, wolves, bears, eagles.

Snatchers.

His dad had said the drones could pick up audio from five miles away.

Kobi bit his lip to stop himself whimpering. He was lost. Alone.

Out here were prey, Kobi. Remember that. There are a hundred things that can kill us.

It had been going so well, their first training session. But Kobi had gotten scared. When his father hadnt returned after ten minutes, hed rushed after him. Betrayed his trust. That was the worst thingworse even than the ball of fear building in his gut now. Ive let Dad down.

He heard a noise, to his left. Just a rustle.

Dad?

He walked quickly, placing each foot with care on the spongy, moss-covered ground. He ducked under a branch, feeling twigs scrape at his hair. Sunlight trickled through a break in the foliage just ahead. The clearing where he was supposed to wait! Hed managed to circle back. He could wait here for his dad. Kobi wiped his tears away and hurried on. It was going to be okay. His dad might never know he hadnt waited.

Kobi burst through the veil of branches, tearing aside leaves bigger than his head.

His feet skidded in the mud as he stopped. It wasnt the clearing at all. It was a rocky wharf.

He gazed out over the largest expanse of water hed ever seenstretching out for miles.

Elliott Bay, Kobi whispered. Hed seen it on maps. His breath shuddered in his chest at the size of it.

Huge patches of phosphorescence shimmered like spilled oil, and lily pads several feet across floated on the surface, sprouting flowers of every hue. Shreds of dense mist drifted in places, hovering over the surface. In the distance, on what must have been the far shore, colossal green monoliths soared into the clouds. Downtown Seattle. Bill Gates High School, where Kobi and his dad had made their base, was in West Seattle, a formerly residential area of the city. Unlike his dad, hed never crossed the bridge to the downtown area, but hed heard it was once home to two million people, before the Waste had wiped out the population and the genetically modified vegetation and animals had taken over.

Kobi was about to retreat from the bay and continue searching for his dad when his ears caught a sound: the soft slap of water. Then ripples began to pulse from a patch of mist, furrowing the surface until they reached the bank near his feet. When Kobi squinted, he could just make out a dark shape in the center of the lake, moving steadily parallel to the shore. His knees almost buckled as he took a slight sudden step forward. A sail? A boat!

His dad had always been so sure there were no other survivors, and if by a slim chance they were out there, they would be too hard to reach. But Kobi had always hoped. He could never get rid of the thought, a lingering, impossible dream that one day they might find others like themkids his age, other families, people who they could rely on. And now, almost like a miracle, that day had really come. Here they were: survivors, just a few hundred yards away. Kobi found his voice. Hey! he called.

The boat kept going, drifting away into the mist.

No! Wait! Kobi shouted, waving his arms.

But the ship maintained its course, becoming a ghostly shape in the mist before disappearing entirely from view.

Kobi looked around for something to throwa rock or a branch. Anything to get their attention. But there was nothing. He watched the mist again, pleading in his heart for them to turn around and come back. How could they not have heard him?

Kobi! called a distant, frantic voice. Dad. Kobi, where are you?

His eyes still on the water, Kobi shouted back. Im fine! Im by the water. Dad, I

A vast gleaming fin sliced up from the depths, twenty yards out, and the surface ballooned upward as a massive body followed. Kobi staggered back.

What hed seen, he realized, hadnt been a boat at all. A wall of water overwhelmed the bank and crashed over him, freezing and sudden. The ground turned to slick mud, and his feet slipped out from beneath him. Kobi felt the current snatch him up and suck his legs into the shallows. He twisted and clawed at the bank, but his fingers slid over the ground. And then he was under.

Kobi flailed. Water burned up his nostrils and into the back of his throat. He scrambled for purchase, but the bank dropped away suddenly. The churning water dragged him deeper. He couldnt swim. He couldnt breathe. But rearing above both of those fears was a greater terror: the creature looming out there in the murky water. His fingers brushed something slimy, and he recoiled, kicking out and striking a harder surface. A low, mournful soundan eerie callseemed to come from every direction at once. It was impossible to pinpoint. He felt the water stir again below, and looking down into the depths, he saw a flash of silver flesh, rolling, then a sickly yellow eye, watching him. It rolled back in a fleshy red socket, and the creature rose. The scale of its body seemed impossible. Frozen, Kobi took in the scarred flesh of its head, a blunt nose, a mouth that stretched open like a crack in the ground. Rows of jagged teeth, each curved fang long enough to pierce right through Kobis body....

Something clamped his upper arm, digging into the flesh, and pulled. Suddenly he was out of the water, being hauled to shore, slithering across the muddy bank. The water exploded upward, drenching him in its spray as a black-and-white body rose, then crashed down again. It was some sort of orca, Kobi realized, its skin gouged with scars and patches of red, raw flesh. Kobi watched it disappear beneath the surface as he was dragged farther from the waters edge.