After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1) (14 page)

“You’re in a big hurry now, huh?” he said, a note of bitterness in his voice.

I was taken aback. 
“Look, it’s not that, it’s just....”

“It’s okay, Brant.” He made a curt motion with his hand. “Not a big deal. You know I said all along it wouldn’t help anyway. You were the one who was so hell bent on working miracles with my legs.”

“Well, with or without that second leg, you were going to need something else to stabilise you. There’s no musculature, no tendons, or anything like that. You wouldn’t be able to propel yourself along. It gets you higher off the ground, but that’s about it. So I had this idea-”

“The
ideas man
,” he said acerbically. “Boy, you sure have a lot of those.”

“Hey, come on, Max. Don’t pull this shit on me. I’m trying to help you here.”

He turned and glared at me. “I never asked for your help.”

I ignored him and ploughed on. “So look, I figured it out. We need to find you a pair of crutches. I’m probably going to have to cobble something together to match your height, but there’s plenty of wood lying around. I should be able to fix something up pretty quick. It won’t be fashionable, and will take a bit of getting used to, but we can get some practice in before we leave. You know, up and down the street, try scaling a few piles of rubble, some stairs. Sand. Keep in mind I’ll be with you the whole way. I’ll be there to help you get through anything tricky.”

“I never
asked
for your help,” he growled, more stridently this time.

My expression hardened. “What’s with you? Why are you intent on blocking me at every turn? I’m bending over backwards here to make things work. Don’t you realise we’re on the verge of something amazing, here? Why would you resist that?”

“Because I don’t want your pity, and I
don’t need your help
.”  He bit off the last four words for emphasis.  “Did I stop you in the street that day?  Flag you down like some damsel in distress?  No, I didn’t.  Wanna know why?  Because I don’t
need you
.  You’ve made it your personal mission to save me from my predicament here, but never thought to ask me what
I
want.  Well, now I’m telling you.  I don’t want any part of this.  I
’m
not buying what you’re selling.  Am I making myself clear?  Are you starting to get the picture yet?”

“You know I’m not leaving you here, Max. Don’t for one second think I’d do that.”

“Look, just go.” He motioned toward the doorway. “Go. Take your fuckin’... whatever it is in the courtyard, and just get out of here.”

“Max, if one member of the squad goes out, we all go out, remember?”

“
What?
” he seethed.

“That’s what you told me. Remember?”

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare bring that up.  Don’t you
dare!
  You were
never
part of my squad, so don’t try pretending that you
were
.  And don’t pretend that there’s some kind of bond between us that makes us inseparable from this day forth.  It doesn’t work like that.  I’ve been here for years upon years upon years and I got along fine without you in the picture.  I didn’t need you to pull
me out of the rubble, and I sure as shit don’t need you to drag me across a thousand clicks of desert.”

“I think you’re wrong, Max,” I said, leaning forward.  “There
is
a bond, because we’re the same.  We’re in the same predicament, we’ve been through the same things.  We’ve lived through the dark, the coldness, the despair of being left behind.  We’ve come through the other side and now we’re ready to move forward.  Don’t you understand that?”

He laughed contemptuously.  “One of us understands, and one of us
doesn’t
, Brant.  You think we’re the same, you and me?”  His mouth twisted in disdain.  “You couldn’t be more wrong.  As it is, we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.”  He drew his index fingers apart and spread them wide.  “Complete opposites.  We’ve both been waiting, yes.  We’ve both been waiting a long time, and we’ve both been through a lot of shit.  But we’ve been waiting for completely different things.  You’ve been waiting all this time for a beginning.  And now, here it is.  You found it.  I’m glad.  I’m happy for you.  You can run off, back to where you belong.  You can have your new life, your new start.  But me?  All I’ve been waiting for all this time is an
end
. That’s all I’ve wanted. An end.”

I got up and walked past him, meaning to leave him to stew in his own bitterness, but then turned back. The dented metal of the ruined left side of his face shone dully, appearing strange to me, as I was used to viewing him from the other side, where he still had skin and hair. From this angle he appeared to be nothing but machine. All alloy and wires and artificial components. There was none of his humanity left for me to see, or to which I could appeal.

I stepped closer. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m going to leave you stuck out there. That I’m going to dump you in a sand dune at the first sign of Marauders. You think that all the things I’ve told you are empty promises, and that there’s nothing out there that I can offer you. But you don’t have to think that.”

“I don’t
care
what you think you know about me, Brant.”  His fury was beginning to rise again, his hands gripping tighter on the wooden armrests of his chair.  “And I know that if it came down to a choice between sticking by me for a hundred years while I was trapped in a sand dune somewhere, or leaving me there and heading home so you can save the world... I know what you’d choose.”

I just shook my head, impotent.

“Thought so.”

Suddenly I was fed up. With Max, with Perish, with everything. I retorted with some venom of my own.

“Then just stay here and die, Max.  Just stay here and
die
.”

“Yes, that’s the plan. You understand now.”

“Well that’s a bullshit plan, Max.”

He rounded on me. “Do you remember the crevasse, Brant? Do you?”

“Yeah, sure. That stupid imaginary hypothetical of yours. Another way for you to fear something that’s never actually going to happen.”

His hands tightened further on the arms of his chair. It creaked mightily, as though it were about to split apart. He was fearsome, more so than I had even seen him before as he drew himself up.

“Imaginary?  I’m already
in
the crevasse,” he roared.  “I’ve been here for decades.  This,” he waved his arms about expansively, “this world
is
my fuckin’ crevasse!  I’m stuck here with no chance of ever getting out!  I don’t have some bag of meat with my name on it, waiting on the other side of the world to solve all my problems!  To give my life
meaning
.  I’m stuck in a place
I don’t want to be, and I can’t
ever
leave it.  I can’t leave, or escape for just one minute.  Not one second!  It’s always here, and it always will be.  I can’t even fuckin’
die
! 
This
is my crevasse, Brant.”  He was shaking.  “It’s not hypothetical!  It’s real.”

“Max-”

“Now
get out
.” He suddenly levered himself up on the chair and hoisted his prosthetic leg in the air. With thunderous force he brought it down on the windowsill, creating a deep gouge in the woodwork and sending splinters flying everywhere.

“Max, stop!” I screamed, horrified, rushing forward and gripping his leg with my hands. I stared at him, face to face, saw the rage within his eyes. He struggled against me and I fought back, but it was no use. With a mighty heave he shrugged me away, then brought the prosthetic down again and again, punctuating each strike with the words, “
Get... the... fuck... out!
” And each blow took another gouge out of the window frame, creating a deafening cacophony. I tried to step in again but I was driven back by his flailing limbs, fearing he’d cut me in half with one of his strokes. After almost a dozen colossal impacts, the prosthetic shattered, breaking apart and clattering on the concrete below.

“Leave me alone!” he roared.  With a jerk, he threw himself out of the chair.  It thumped to the floor behind him.  He scrambled toward me, and I lurched backward.  His eyes were demonic.  I grasped at the balcony handrail, slipping and stumbling away. 

He turned abruptly at the stairwell and threw himself into it, bumping and scraping heavily down into the courtyard. Frenetic, he squirmed across the concrete and over into the streets, scraping through the rubble. I heard him slither away for a minute or two more, somewhere out in the blackness, but then there was silence. After that I heard nothing more.

15

The sky was grey. A dense fog had moved in overnight, cloaking the city in an oppressive and impenetrable haze. Nearby skyscrapers were swallowed up, disappearing into obscurity just above the rooftops of smaller buildings, as if they’d been lopped off at the stem. In both directions, the street ended abruptly a short distance away in the nebulous white silence. A light, misting rain swirled down from above, tiny particles shifting about on imperceptible air currents. They coated the buildings, the rubble, the courtyard and my skin in a glistening sheen. It didn’t rain much in this city. It almost seemed like a different place in this light.

It was my last morning in Perish.

Of Max, there was no sign, or sound. He hadn’t come back after leaving the night before, either gone, or hiding somewhere out there in the fog. I’d briefly scouted around the neighbourhood, but it was useless. If he was nearby, he was being awfully quiet. In reality, he had a whole city to hide within. He could be right next door, or he could be several kilometres away. My chances of finding him out there were next to nothing. I’d followed what I thought were his drag marks for a short distance, but they disappeared into a pile of fallen brickwork. I tossed a few bricks aside, for a moment fearing he’d been caught in a collapse, but he wasn’t underneath. And besides, I’d have heard the bricks come down last night if that had been his fate.

I wondered: even if I did find him, then what?  He obviously didn’t want anything to do with me.  Would I drag him out by those stumpy legs, kicking and screaming, and haul him all the way back to the courtyard?  Would I berate him for his churlishness and demand an apology?  Or just settle on a friendly handshake. 
Put her there, pal. All’s well that ends well. Sure, sure, it’s been swell. All the best to you.

More likely he’d knock my head off before I had a chance to even lay a hand on him. One swing from those tree-trunk-like arms and I’d be looking for a new face.

No, there was no point. There wasn’t a scenario I could come up with that resulted in a good outcome.

“Max?” I called. My voice fell flat, as if I was shut in a box, as if the fog itself devoured the sound before it could deflect off the buildings and echo back to me. It was a creepy effect that only enhanced the feeling that I was alone and trapped in a strange place.

I didn’t want it to end like this.

I lifted my face to the rain.  It was cold and delicate as it brushed against me.  I stood for a few minutes like that, and the rain pooled ever so slowly around my eyes and mouth.  It began to drip off my chin.  It almost felt like a cleansing, a purge, to wipe away the dust of the city that had accumulated during my time here.  A detoxification.  I lifted my hands to it and felt it on my palms, smoothed the moisture between my fingers. 

I wiped my hands on my shirt, then scrubbed at my face. I knew I’d be leaving grimy streak marks down my cheeks, but I didn’t care.

He wasn’t coming back. It was time to go.

I built a little wooden pedestal from scattered pieces of wood and placed the can containing the weed neatly on top. It was a modest composition for a thing of such importance, but it would have to do. I left it in the middle of the courtyard where it would get some sun and some rain, where it could see the sky.

I couldn’t take it with me. It belonged here in Perish.

I stepped out into the street, looked both ways.  Hefted the satchel, felt the weight of it on my shoulder.  It felt good.  It felt
right
.

“Max, you there?” Nothing. Just the emptiness of Perish pressing in around me. A sound of frustration, of sadness emanated from my throat. “
Aaagh.
  Max.  I’ll come back for you.”

I started walking, compass in hand. West. That was the way.

In moments the apartment had been swallowed behind me by fog. As I walked, buildings that had become familiar over the last few days came into view, one by one, like old friends lining up to shake my hand as I left on my journey. I acknowledged them all with a glance, a nod. A tiny movement of my mouth. Strange to react in such a way to these long abandoned frameworks, devoid of minds and souls. Things that couldn’t respond in any way other to than stand there silently and watch me go. But in a world such as this, they were the closest thing I had to acquaintances.