Last Wild Boy (6 page)

Nora shimmied over to another small boulder closer to the other wall and tried the same thing. This time the concrete moved, but just barely. Nora smiled. She tried again, and managed to lift the boulder about an inch above the one below it. She let the rock fall back into place, careful to leave the blade of the shovel wedged underneath.

“You okay down there, Adam?” Nora called as she held onto the shovel handle tightly with her right hand and slid the blazer from around her neck with her left. She wasn't really expecting an answer, of course, but she figured hearing her voice might keep Adam calm. Instead, he started to cry.

Nora's heart quickened as soon as she heard Adam's wails, and she had to fight the deep-seated maternal instinct within her that made her want to jump from the pile and run to him to make sure he was okay. “Hush, now,” she called to him in the most soothing voice she could. “It's okay, Adam — I'm right here.”

Adam's cries grew louder, and Nora could feel the blood rushing through her veins. She wanted so badly to climb down to him, but she knew she had to finish what she started. She looked down at her feet to make sure that they were both perched in stable spots on the girder below her, then leaned forward with her left hand and positioned the blazer in front of the boulder, making sure the metal buttons were facing down. When she had the blazer in place, she shifted all of her weight onto her right arm and pushed down on the shovel handle as hard as she could. The boulder lifted up off the one beneath it, and Nora quickly shoved the blazer underneath it with her left hand. As she did so, she lost her balance and fell sideways, just managing to get her hand out from under the boulder before it crashed back down on to the one below it.

Adam's wails had intensified and now he cried out at the top of his lungs in loneliness and desperation. Nora felt every mournful sound in her gut and she wanted to weep or to scream in desperation. But there was no one to help them. It was all up to her. “Hold on just a little longer, sweet one!” Nora called. “I'll be there soon!” She steadied herself against the shovel handle, then, when she was sure she'd managed to regain her footing, pulled the shovel out from under the boulder and dropped it. It clattered down the pile noisily, then skidded across the floor a few feet before it came to a stop.

Nora turned her attention back to the boulder, trying to tune out Adam's cries so she could focus. She squared her feet on the girder below her, then tugged on the blazer with all her might. She could feel the metal buttons scraping against the concrete below them as she inched the boulder closer and closer to her. It was working! She stopped and caught her breath, then tugged on the blazer again. This time the buttons slid a little more easily, and she managed to drag the boulder almost all the way to the edge of the pile. She shuffled her feet down the girder a little further and inched away from the path of the boulder, then reached over and gave the blazer one final pull. The boulder slid forward and then fell down over the edge of the pile. It crashed down to the floor with a mighty bang, and a cloud of white dust exploded up from it.

“I did it!” Nora exclaimed. “Adam! I did it!” She poked her head through the hole where the boulder had been and shone the flashlight through it, down the tunnel. She couldn't see much, but she could feel the cool air against her face as she leaned into it.

Adam let out a mighty wail, which cut right through Nora's reverie. “It's okay!” Nora called down to him as she started to make her way down the pile. “You're going to be all right, Adam!”

When Nora reached the bottom of the pile, she ran over to Adam, picked him up, and held him tight. “You're going to be okay,” she whispered to him as she kissed his head. “I'm going to get you out of here.”

When Adam had calmed down and his cries had subsided to whimpers, Nora lay him back down in his basket and picked up the canvas bags filled with the supplies. Since she knew the guards could come back at any time, she decided to make two trips up the pile, one with the bags and the second with Adam. This way she could move as quickly as possible, and it wouldn't be as dangerous as if she were try it with both the heavy bags and the baby.

She put one bag over either shoulder and took the flashlight in her left hand, leaving her right hand free to move obstacles and pull her upwards, or to catch her if she fell. She knew that if she were seriously hurt, all of this would be for nothing. She took a deep breath and started up.

It was slow going and much harder than she expected. The bags made her heavier and more unstable. The debris underfoot kept shifting, causing bits of concrete and gravel and dirt to rattle downwards. Every time this happened, she lost her balance and almost fell. Several times her legs or her arms scraped against the jagged bits of broken reinforcement steel that stuck out here and there like the antennae of grotesque concrete insects.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, she'd finally managed to make it through the hole at the top of the pile and down the other side. She left the bags at the base of the tunnel and carefully returned for Adam. It was much easier climbing without being burdened by the bags, and it only took a few minutes for her to make her way back to Adam. She picked his basket up and began climbing the pile as cautiously as she could. Once again she felt the frequent razor-like cuts and bruise-inducing impacts against rock and metal. But this time she found comfort and purpose in Adam's warm presence.

She breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the very top of the mound. Manoeuvring through the hole with Adam proved to be a bit of a challenge, but Nora managed it with minimal injury. When she reached the other side, she rotated her legs down carefully, then felt her way to the bottom of the pile. She set Adam down and kissed him.

Nora looked down the tunnel ahead of her. There was an almost imperceptible light coming from farther down, enough for her to make out the shapes of her baby and the bags. She picked Adam up and, after rummaging through the bags, found the remains of his tube of nutrifier, which he swallowed down with happy gusto. As she sat with him feeding on her lap, she examined her legs and arms. She was sore from battling the pile of debris, but aside from a few scrapes and bruises and the cut on her leg from her last time climbing down the pile, she seemed fine.

There was no more time to waste. She didn't know how long it had been since the guards had pumped the gas into the room, but she was sure several hours at least had gone by. Maybe more. Their shift would have to be ending soon.

Nora loaded the bags onto her shoulders, put Adam back in his basket, and headed down the corridor. A short ways down, it made an abrupt turn to the right and led into a breezy tunnel. The light was brighter here, and Nora was able to turn the flashlight off and find her way through the shadows to the end. The tunnel led into a huge concrete pipe, some kind of ancient storm sewer, Nora guessed. She looked both ways. To her left was nothing but darkness and the slow drip, drip, drip of falling water. To the right, she saw in the far distance a pinpoint of brilliant, clear light.

Nora stepped into the sewer. There was water leaking into the pipe from up towards the city. Probably irrigation water seeping down from the lawns, parklands, and fields above, Nora guessed. There was a pasty residue on the bottom of the sewer, and she didn't want to imagine what she was stepping in. The subdued, but still somewhat pungent, odour that arose from the residue didn't make things better. As Nora progressed, she had to step carefully around occasional mounds of unpleasant, unknown substances.

Nora made her way slowly through the pipe, and as the light coming from the end of the tunnel intensified, she found she had to squint to fight it from burning her sore, tired eyes. She was eventually able to make out a heavy metal grille covered in moss and slime at the end of the sewer. She hoped that didn't mean that after all her hard work they were now stuck in a concrete prison. When she reached the grille, she felt both excitement and fear. Looking through it, she could see green grass and a quick-moving stream running past. The sky was overcast, but it wasn't raining. She breathed in the warm summer air, and held Adam up to the grate so he could fill his lungs as well. They were so close, but it could all be for nothing if she wasn't able to get the gate open. And even if she did, she had no idea what awaited her outside in the wild.

Nora located a dry area of the pipe where the wall curved up away from the floor and set down Adam's basket and the bags. Adam turned his head toward the light and seemed perfectly happy in spite of the fact that his diaper was most certainly full. Nora resolved to wait until they were outside to clean him up.

Nora examined the gate. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any locks on it, and the door was fastened shut with wire. Nora unwound the wire and the grille swung open on well-greased hinges. “Well, that was easy,” she said cheerfully as she picked Adam back up. “Maybe our luck has started to change.”

She took Adam to a dry place under a tree and returned for the bags, which she set on the nearest bit of dry ground outside the sewer. She swung the grille closed, then climbed up onto the pipe and rewired it shut. Finally, she picked up her things and returned to where Adam's basket was lying under the tree.

Nora changed Adam's messy diaper quickly, then rinsed the old one out in the stream. When she was finished, she used another of his clean diaper cloths to wash the dried blood and dirt from her legs and arms. She spread the two wet cloths out on a nearby rock to dry, then picked Adam up and curled up with him under the protection of some low branches. She needed some time to rest before continuing. She held her baby tightly in her arms, rested her head against the bag of clothes, and fell fast asleep.

C
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Alice had never seen the room look like this before. In the air floated a wisp of fog that smelled of decay and glowed and danced as if the summer house were on fire. She glanced around the room, thinking for a moment that she must be somewhere else. Everything about it, though, appeared to be in its proper place: the heavy curtains, the pictures on the walls, the cushions scattered over the sofa.

Nora sat in a chair in the corner, holding the doomed child. Alice's cherished companion smiled invitingly at her. The picture filled Alice with conflicting emotions, not the least of which was jealousy. She had always been aware of her possessiveness, but to be jealous of a mere baby, and a condemned outsider child at that…

Nora's shirt was unbuttoned and opened wide. The back of the baby's head moved softly and hungrily as it nursed from her breast. Alice could hear the slurping sounds of feeding and see the contentment in Nora's face. Alice moved up closer to her friend just as the child turned its head toward her. A scream of rage and fear leapt up from the deepest recesses of her feminine soul and soared around the empty spaces in the room.

What should have been the baby's soft round face was suddenly the face of a large rodent, beady eyes staring viciously at her, pointed teeth threatening her from its gaping, frothing mouth. Suddenly, Nora disappeared completely, and as the fog cleared Alice woke up and found herself in bed. She sat up, heart pounding, and rubbed her eyes.

Thank the Goddess! It had been a nightmare!

Alice looked down to see that she was lying on top of the
covers, still wearing the dress from the day before. A magazine was splayed out on the bed beside her. I must have fallen asleep
as I was waiting for Nora to get back, she thought to herself.
She looked over at the clock on the wall. It was nearly four in the morning.

She got up and walked out into the main room to look for Nora, but there was no sign of her. She searched the rest of the house, calling Nora's name out, but the longer she searched, the more obvious it became that she was home alone.

Within moments Alice was close to panic. Nora had been gone for hours, and there were no signs to indicate that she had come back home during the night. Alice closed her eyes in hopes of quelling her dizziness. She had to think this out properly. Should she call security? No, it was too soon. And what could she possibly tell them?

“What have you done, Nora?” Alice said out loud.

Alice returned to the bedroom and hurriedly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Then she ran out into the main living area and began to search for a flashlight. As she yanked out drawer after drawer, she realized just how much she normally relied on Nora. Nora knew where everything was stored and had always been so willing to wait on her. At first it was just because she was paid to do so, but later on it became clear that she took such good care of Alice because she cared about her.

Finally, just as Alice was about to give up, she found a working flashlight. She grabbed it, threw her sneakers on, and burst out the door. Outside, the moon shone brightly in the night sky and the grounds were alive with shadows. Alice became more and more frightened as she moved from moonlit patch to shadow. She wanted Nora to materialize out of the darkness and return to her before it was too late. That was their only hope. It was madness for her to try to avoid the authorities. There was nowhere to hide inside of Aahimsa unless you were rich and powerful enough to buy safety. Nora was neither of these. Without Alice and her mother to protect her, there was nothing ahead of her but servitude, or worse.

By now Alice was completely aware of just how dangerous a game she and Nora had been playing when they'd picked the baby up and taken it home. Yesterday everything had been under control. They'd been safe in the summer house. They could have dropped the baby off somewhere and it would eventually have been discovered. Now everything had changed.

Alice spent hours combing the grounds of Aahimsa, searching for Nora. But as the sun started to rise, she still hadn't been able to find even a sign of her. Her search eventually brought her to a grassy meadow below the wall that surrounded Aahimsa. A long set of steps led up to the top of the wall. She remembered the last time she had climbed up those steps to the top: feeling the frightening power radiating off the electronic moat, seeing the trees spanning out for what seemed like forever into the wild, following the river as it snaked along through the countryside, and taking in the magnificent view of the vast sea, dotted with ships carrying manufactured goods from Aahimsa to the other remaining cities of the world.

Before she was even aware of a plan she found herself slowly making her way up the steep and winding stairway, holding tightly to the rusted iron rail as she went. As she neared the top she read the signs that warned of the dangerous energy moat. She was nervous as she drew nearer to the powerful wall defenses. Even standing as far back as she could from the invisible barrier that guarded the entire dome of Aahimsa sky from unwanted intruders, she could feel her hair responding to the forces and standing excitedly on end.

She stepped out of the terrifying current and into the tiny insulated guardhouse to her right. Immediately she felt relief
from the pulsing energy that had been coursing through her. She walked over to the window. From here she could see a long way up and down the wall. The area immediately below and outside the wall was bleak and desolate. The silver-white glow of the full moon emphasized its starkness. The only break in the monotony came from a miserable hut that sat on the edge of the dead zone.

Alice stared off into the distance, watching how the moonlight danced on the vast sea and glinted here and there on the narrow face of the Humble River, emphasizing the pathetic emptiness of the dead zone and its little hut. She squinted and stared into the outside, searching for any sign of Nora, even though she knew in her heart there was no chance her friend could have made it out of Aahimsa. A silent tear rolled down her cheek as she turned and headed back to the house.