The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) (41 page)

It
burned.

“Tell ’em whatever you like.”

“You’re already awake,” Zeke noted. “Might as well get yourself up and do something useful.”

He opened the other eye. “Why don’t you drag Huey out to play with the inexplicable, if it’s so damn important to have company?”

“He didn’t want to come. He didn’t say that, but I know him well enough. It scared him, and he don’t want to see it again. I can’t blame him, except that I
do.
” Zeke gave Rector another shove for good measure, then withdrew—holding the lantern higher and farther away, thank God.

“He’s no dummy.” But he sat up, rubbed at his itching eyes, and yawned.

“He’s pretending he’s got work to do. He’s sticking close to the fort and pretending like he can’t leave. But the captain’s not even over there—he’s off someplace with my mother. I bet.”

“That must be strange.”

“Yeah, but what am I going to say about it? He’s all right, and even if he wasn’t, he could toss me over the wall with his pinky finger.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Rector reached for his boots—or whoever’s boots they were—and stuffed his feet inside them.

“Come on, hurry up.”

“Don’t rush me. I’m working on it.”

He almost knew the way to the outer blocks by now. He realized this at the same time he realized that he still wasn’t sure how to get back to the Station, so perhaps he’d made some kind of decision without noticing it.

Not worth wondering yet, not quite so soon.

The day was quiet after the night’s cacophony of violence and light. It was an odd thing, and it felt like distance, but it wasn’t, was it? The wall had a hole just a few blocks north; the city had a leak and terribly ill animals and dying people; and the tower was gone—blown to a million bricks by Huey’s handiwork on the clock-bomb.

Neither Zeke nor Rector brought this up, even when they hiked through the fog-shrouded streets and sometimes kicked a gun, or noticed a nearly new gas mask lying beside a body.

Not all of the bodies became rotters. Most of them, yes. But nothing on earth is any use without its head. Few things are any use when they’re cut or blown or chewed in half. Whatever the cause, no rotters reached out with rickety, grasping fingers as they slogged up the hills and between the narrow blocks of the time-blasted city. So instead of talking about it, the two boys only considered it as they walked side by side. They were careful to stick to the walls for shelter and cover, and they guided each other away from any debris that made them wonder, even in the slightest.

The prison itself was as they’d left it, quiet and squat. Missing its front door and still as clogged with Blight as ever, it was the very picture of someplace unloved and unused, and almost certainly forgotten.

Inside, Seattle’s second city jail felt like the tomb it’d almost become seventeen years ago and change. Not a sound. Not a motion. Not a breath to stir the dusty beams of light that cut inside halfheartedly and none too efficiently. Not until Rector and Zeke came inside. Their filters gusted as they exhaled, and sparkling motes of yellow-brown dust eddied in the puddles of ill-formed illumination.

But then, listening and walking with exaggerated care, they heard the faint, rhythmic sounds of something large drawing steady breaths and pushing them out again. The barest hint of a filter’s hiss underscored the sound, and then the slow, sad scrape of some fur-covered body part sliding along the floor.

Past the empty cells, with their leaning doors and rusting bars, they walked. Down the corridor of legend, where Maynard Wilkes had set the prisoners free and then raced to outrun the Blight.

It felt far away, same as the night before, and same as the silence after the fire.

And here was the great peacekeeper’s descendant—a spindly thing, smallish and slender. A kind boy, if not the imposing man his grandfather was alleged to be. But his mother was a little woman, and come to think of it, Rector didn’t know anything about Leviticus Blue. So this was what you got when you stirred up people and made families. Unexpected combinations. Unlikely weaknesses. Uncommon strengths.

Ezekiel Wilkes was not a bad sort. He’d worked so hard to save that fox, and he’d held his own on the top of the governor’s mansion with the mirrors and lights. Perhaps Rector needed to rethink the things he thought.

The inexplicable was seated on the ground, wedged in the corner in his absurd glass helmet that fit too closely. But he was no longer tangled in Angeline’s net. The net was discarded in pieces, shoved to the side.

Sasquatch looked up at them. His gaze sharpened. And it was probably Rector’s imagination, but the creature looked … clearer. Not healthy, but
aware
in a way he hadn’t previously.

Zeke began talking, because that’s what Zeke did. “Hey there, Mister Sasquatch.”

“He doesn’t know his name. Angeline said so.”

“I don’t care,” Zeke said. He didn’t look back at Rector. Then, to the seated animal that was neither an animal nor a person so far as either one of the boys could tell, he added, “You’re looking better. I see you looking at me, and I think your eyes are better. I know it’s only been a little while, but the cleaner air will help you, if you let it.”

He kept his voice level and smooth, and was careful to not make any sudden movements. It took Rector a moment to notice that he was copying Zeke’s posture and methods.

“You know what you’re risking,” Rector breathed. “You open that door and turn that thing loose…”

Zeke took out a key—had he taken the key with him? Why did everyone but Rector have keys?—and jammed it into the vintage lock with its rusty edges and squeaking mechanisms. He turned it, jerked the body, and the fastener popped and came away. The door opened. Inside Zeke stepped—still cautious, but with a curious confidence Rector wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

(But he had. With the fox, back in the Vaults.)

And the world was full of surprises.

The inexplicable did not move except to track Zeke with his eyes, sparing a slashing look of curiosity toward Rector. But since Rector was hanging back, he kept most of his attention on the scruffy, brown-haired boy in the weird mask. His gaze drew circles on the mask, as if trying his damnedest to understand what it was, and what was underneath it. Not looking at Zeke’s face, but trying to figure out if Zeke had a face.

“It’s a mask,” Zeke told him, as though he were reading the creature’s mind. “Does the same thing as yours.” He pointed at his filters, at the visor. And then he very, very slowly crept forward until he was well within grabbing distance, then crouched down just far enough to be at eye level with the sasquatch. He held up one finger, moved it slowly to the bulbous glass helmet, and gently tapped its nearest filter.

The inexplicable cringed.

Zeke didn’t. “See? Same as mine. And I bet you’re thirsty as can be inside that thing, but you can’t take it off quite yet.”

“I said, he don’t understand you. Everyone says he don’t understand you,” Rector told him from his position of relative safety, back behind the door. He was already working out the mental ballet—the emergency measures that would surely force him to shut the door with Zeke inside, buying himself the minute and a half necessary for a head start before the creature yanked it clean out of the wall and came after him.

Zeke ignored him. “Mister Sasquatch, I’m going to take this cuff off you now, all right? Please don’t … please don’t pull my head off, or anything. I’m only trying to help.”

“You’re insane.”

“Here, like this. I’m taking your arm now. Don’t hurt me or nothing, ’cause I’m not trying to hurt you.”

The chain rattled dully in Zeke’s gloved grip as he wrestled with the key and did his best to keep from hurting the manacled thing on the floor. The sasquatch studied his every move, either waiting for an opportunity or only trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Rector didn’t know. When the cuff came off, it dropped with a heavy clank and kicked up a tiny cloud of angry dust.

Immediately, but slowly, the creature reached his hand up and touched the filtered helmet.

As if it hadn’t occurred to him that it was a bad idea, Zeke shot his hand out and took the thing’s wrist. “No!” he said quickly, then withdrew just as fast as he’d objected. Rector knew that look—it was a gesture he’d seen a hundred times on the outside, when other kids had picked on Zeke and he’d ducked back, waiting to get hit.

He didn’t get hit.

“You … you got to leave it on, see?” Zeke did his best to explain, but confusion and discomfort was written all over the thing’s puffy, dark-colored face. “You got to leave it on. But not for too much longer—because we’re taking you outside.”

“I think it’s too soon.”

Over his shoulder, Zeke said, “He’ll die of thirst if we leave him here too much longer, and he can’t have anything to drink while he’s in the helmet. You can tell he’s better. All we have to do is get him outside.”

“If you say so.”

“Just help me, would you?”

“How?” Rector asked.

Zeke made a frustrated little noise in response. “Stay out of the way, I guess. And if this thing kills me, run home and tell my mother so she don’t wonder what happened.”

“Great. I’ll do that.”
And she’ll blame me,
he added in his head. “Did you even bring a gun?”

“No. You heard what the princess said about guns.”

The whole time he talked, Zeke kept eye contact with the creature, and not Rector. He took a step back, and then another one. He held out his hands in an inviting gesture, urging the creature to stand up and follow him. “Come on, Sasquatch. Let me help you get home. Let me get you out of here.”

Not wholly convinced, but game to see where this was headed, the sasquatch scooted unsteadily to his feet. He folded his legs under himself and shoved, bracing his hands on the wall, on the floor, on the window frame and the half-rusted bars that still filled it. The cuff on his other hand fell slack, its chain already dislodged from the manacle and the wall, both.

“He could’ve walked out of here anytime,” Rector marveled.

“Maybe. I don’t know. The other lock was in better shape, and he’s pretty weak right now.” Zeke backed away farther, to the door’s edge, to the spot where Rector was stuck as if there were nails holding his feet down to the hard-packed earth floor.

The sasquatch followed him, wobbling and scratching at the seal around his neck.

“Oh …
boy
…”

“Hush up, Rector. He’s doing fine.”

Out through the front doorway where there wasn’t any door left to close, and into the deserted streets where there wasn’t any fire anymore, the inexplicable followed Zeke. Stalked him, even. His legs weren’t very stable and his head looked ridiculous inside that globe, but he didn’t pry the mask off, and he didn’t tear Zeke’s head off. Rector didn’t have anything to do except look out for rotters.

Rector brought up the rear, watching the sasquatch strive to keep his head up. Sometimes he tipped and toppled, then jerked up straight again. “The mask is heavy,” Rector observed. “It must be hurting his neck.”

“Must be,” Zeke replied, glancing backwards and around, keeping track of all the rocks and debris in his path. He avoided the clutter where he could, and climbed over it where he couldn’t. All the while, he kept his arms up and out, showing he meant no harm, and asking the sasquatch to follow.

Please come with me. Please let me help.

Up the hill a few more blocks, not very far. There weren’t any people there yet, but the previous night’s battle was increasingly evident. Zeke shuddered when the way was blocked by a pair of mutilated corpses. (Mutilated by what? Neither of the boys looked too closely.) Walls were burned and charred pieces of clothing billowed in the Blight as it moved on its usual currents. Pieces of hair and flannel with burned-off edges rolled into the gutters in clotted clumps.

Rector thanked God he couldn’t smell a damn thing.

The breach in the wall was not yet repaired, and might not be for a while yet. But it was covered, down at the base, by a great flap of burlap and wax, stitched together hastily and imperfectly and strung across the crevice like a curtain.

“Better than nothing,” Rector breathed. How much better, he couldn’t say.

By now, Zeke was prepared to trust that his strange ward wouldn’t run away or take to violence. He turned his back and climbed the lowest rocks to reach the curtain. He fumbled with the ties that held it, and the sasquatch watched with his vivid, unblinking eyes.

Those bright eyes widened when the flap came aside, revealing a hole. It was large enough for Zeke to walk through, almost, so it’d be large enough for the sasquatch to crawl through.

Light came through on the other side. Not brilliant light, but a creamy, soft glow that was far more mist than Blight.

Through the hole, Rector saw trees, and the edge of an old building, and part of a road that nobody but the tower men had used in years. He saw the rest of the world, away from the Station and the Vaults, and out of the Blight (or it would be, when they got this hole fixed); he saw a portal to someplace else a million miles away. And it was right over there, a handful of feet on the other side of those huge, rumbling rocks.

He could’ve climbed through it as easily as the sasquatch.

Thirty

The next day, Rector found the old jail again without too much trouble. He had a compass and a lantern, though it was daylight and he hoped he wouldn’t need them. He also had his ax, some extra filters, a canteen of water, some dried cherries and pemmican, and a number of other just-in-case supplies in the pack he wore on his back. A pack kept his hands freer, and his balance was better in the event he needed to run or climb.

He was no great fan of running or climbing, but in the walled city he never knew when it might be called for. There were rotters, after all.

Not as many rotters as there once were, no. Still, their ranks had plumped overnight for reasons everyone knew but nobody talked about. He didn’t like them, but he knew the city needed them, after a fashion. So he learned to take precautions and tried not to complain too much.