The Unit Read Online Free PDF Page A

look back downhill and see some people at the bottom. They’re climbing toward us. There are maybe twenty of them. They’re carrying guns, and I think they see us. Scott clears his throat. Dad looks up from his praying. He sees the other group.
    “Okay,” Dad says. “Maybe there’s another way around.” His voice is very low, and there’s a look of disappointment on his face.
    But then the wind picks up. It blows uphill from the west and makes the clouds boil and lift. The wind blows the heavy cover up and over the top of the mountains. There’s a kind of tunnel in the smoke. It’s like the pipeline of a big surfing wave, and we can see all the way across the summit.
    Mom and Dad laugh together, her voice riding high over his. They run uphill. Scott and I hesitate, but then we run, too. We run into the place that was choked with clouds, and there are bodies in the road, but the air is okay, for the moment, and we make it across. We pass a yellow sign that reads “Steep Grade Ahead.” We run downhill until the clouds are high above us, and we stop and bend down and try to get our respiration rates back to sane levels. The wind dies down and we turn and watch the clouds close in again and cover the road. Dad and Mom don’t say the word “miracle,” but I know they’re thinking it. They’re smiling and Dad points at the ground. He says, “Let’s have lunch, right here.” Mom breaks out an MRE entree of Vegetable Manicotti and we eat it, rich and cold, then we hit the road again.
    We get caught up in the rhythm of walking and put some miles behind us. I shoot Scott a look. He shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes. I’m totally with him. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle that caused the clouds to open up for us, but it
was
some damned good luck, and so we stay with Mom and Dad.
    We walk and listen to the bad rhythm of gunshots in the distance. The feeling of being lucky fades a little more with each shot. My teeth are chattering, and not only because of the cold. The clouds are high above us now, but I’m more afraid of the clouds than I am of other people. There must be radiation. There has to be. And I’m worried about the ozone layer. I don’t feel any different, but there’s a chance that our skin is being bombarded by the sun’s UV rays. Maybe tumors are growing on our skin. And I wonder if these nasty clouds cover the whole earth. And if they do, aren’t we in for a serious round of global cooling? And then what happens to the crops and the animals?
    I want to ask someone about it. Dad might know something more, but he’d only try to withhold the hard facts from me, all evasive and Dad-like, because he’s the same man he was when I was growing up. When he’s not drinking, my dad is more uptight then anyone I’ve ever met. I can’t help noticing that his whole world is filled with worry, and that he’s worried about
us
. Giving orders is his way of showing love, and he’s loving us with all he’s got, my uptight daddy is.
    I haven’t seen him relaxed since he was drinking beer with the colonel, the poor old colonel and his cool, wrinkled wife, back in Yreka, that beautiful place in the good time that didn’t last. We had a fine time, just after the bombs. The locals put on a crazy food orgy of a barbecue, then the colonel and his wife took us in. They were just about the friendliest people I’ve ever met. It seemed as if they didn’t care about their own needs at all. They gave us their best food and asked if we had room for dessert and if we wanted more blankets or needed anything, anything at all. The colonel gave Dad that black rifle, yeah, but I just thought it was a weird gift at the time.
    But maybe they were too friendly. Dad was right to be paranoid, and I’m embarrassed that I wasn’t. Groups of hungry people started sneaking around in the night. They stole only food at first—who could blame them?—but then a big armed group came rushing up the freeway. For some reason, no one