The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (19 page)

“But the trip alone-”

“I know, and heat is an issue, but we have to try something. Staying here out of sentimentality for the past has become more and more foolish.”

I touch the suit, feeling for the small pocket and what it hides inside. It's still there, even after the lake. It didn't fall out and sink into that terrible dark. This must be what people used to talk about when they talked about the God, when impossible things were hoped for even when it didn't make sense to. Child watches me. She knows when there's a picture in my eyes, like I know when there's one in hers.

“You can get the base back,” I say.

All the eyes are on me.

“I'll help you, if you let Child have the small building inside the fence.” Child complains but I quiet her.

“It's not possible. There's no way in unless they let us in, and believe me they won't.”

“With my help it's possible.”

“With all due respect, there's not much you can offer us except an extra hand, and we can't claw our way in.” The other Real People agree, nodding their heads.

I tell them to follow me to the shore. We go where the rocks become smaller and smaller and then sand, and I find a stick to make a picture. With lines that impact each other I draw the word I saw. It's a word I don't know, like I don't know all words, but I know the kinds of places I've seen this word, so I think I know what it means.

When I'm finished I step away. “What does this say?”

Terence says, “Why?”

Boyd leans in. “Exit,” he says. I breathe when I hear this.

“What's this about? Where have you seen this word?”

From the pocket inside the suit I take out the small key, the one Graham dropped on the floor of my mother's house. It's the key that goes with the word on the ceiling, the ceiling in the room where Graham kept the tracker Munie. Behind that word I could hear the empty place, like a hallway or cavern, something that went up into the Mountain. I tell them this, and as I speak I see their faces in the moonlight. It's as if something inside them changes, a feeling I know as much as anyone can know it.

Terence wipes the word away with his foot. “That's all very promising, but we need time to come up with a plan. Maybe in a week or so we can think about making a move.”

“No.” I shake my head. “We move now.”

“That's suicide. We're not prepared, and the sun will be up by the time we get there.”

“Without me Graham can't go back to the base. This means the people don't know the key is gone.”

People start to whisper.

“I understand what you're saying, but it's a tremendous risk for us to try something like that. People can die without a proper plan. Simple as that.”

Boyd steps forward. “Sorry Terence, but she's right.”

“Boyd...”

“Listen to me. If we wait too long Graham might realize it's gone and try to warn them as a way to win back their favor. Or they may take his not coming back as proof he failed and seal up this secret entrance as a precaution. Hold on- does anyone other than Graham know about the door that you know of?”

“The Rachel woman.”

He frowns at Terence. “Within twenty-four hours she'll have herself elected leader. She'll do whatever she can to shut Graham out, permanently. She did it to you, and she actually liked you.”

“Don't rub it in.”

Boyd faces the crowd. “I know we're all scared. We're scared of living in here and we're scared of dying out there, but we may never get this chance again. This is home we're talking about. Our home. If there's a possibility of getting it back, the slightest chance, I say it's worth a shot.”

Terence's face is full of understanding. To Kate he says, “When did your husband become such a convincing salesman?”

“He had practice. He had to ask me to marry him seven times before I said yes.”

The two of them bring their hands together.

Terence says, “Okay, we'll have to vote on it. Who's in favor of using the key to take back the base?”

Every Real Person puts their hand in the Air.

“Keep in mind that a vote for the plan makes you a part of it. That means you come along. You don't wait it out here until the path is clear, you fight with us, and there are absolutely no guarantees it will work.”

The hands stay in the air.

“Okay. Then say your goodbyes to the island, everyone.” He looks at me. “It looks like we're going home.”

**

The Water-car again. I wouldn't have come here if I knew it would be like this- back and forth on the Bastard Water, covering Child's head to keep her from seeing the lake. It's surface is hostile from the waves of the other Water-cars.

Into my arm, Child says, “Mother too much help Child.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

Silence.

“It's not too much.”

“No want mother get Death.”

“I won't get the Death, don't think about that.”

The Sun is coming, rising at the crease of the world. It's still a few hours away but already the pull of it is hard to push back. It speaks to my skeleton, and as I watch Terence steer the Water-car I can't help thinking how sweet his skin smells. I shake the picture away and bury my nose into the top of Child's head.

“Child fear,” she says.

I rub her pink arm with my pink fingers. “More than any other thing, quiet gives me the Fear now. Sitting in one place. All those years in the trailer, I thought I was hiding from the Death, but really I was waiting for it to come. Now I see that to keep moving is life. To make it harder for the Death to find you.”

She closes her eyes against my chest. It hurts to think I have to leave her alone when this is done, when her safe place in the small building is sure. But I can't let my mother see me as a full Munie. To have her know her child is a thing that makes Supplies of Real People.

The way they made Supplies of her.

**

Minutes from land all the Water-cars shut off. The Real People take out sticks to push us the rest of the way, quietly watching for moving shapes in the buildings and between the trees, until we reach the wooden lines and attach to them.

Child and I run to land and turn to watch them take Supplies from crates in the Water-car: guns, small things that explode, masks of all kinds, and small machines that go over their ears and mouths. They speak into them and after a minute I realize they're speaking to each other this way because they can't hear each other from distances or pick up each others' scent trails.

Terence wraps a rope around his arm in circles. “Luckily we leave the boats heavily supplied. The upside of being thrown out of your house is the paranoia keeps you prepared.”

Boats.

“What's your plan?”

Boyd joins us with Kate behind him, helping to put his machine on over his mask. “We think it would be a mistake if we all rushed into the base at once. It might start a bigger fight than we want.”

“Agreed. I want as little bloodshed as possible,” Terence says.

“Then we need to figure out a way to draw them out, cut them off from the base. The thought of being outside in the daytime might make them more open to negotiating.”

“It's a nice thought, but I wouldn't bet on it.”

“Then how can we convince them to leave? We can't exactly set Fire to it, as much as we might want to.”

“I don't want to do that.”

Boyd smiles. “No, of course not, neither do I. Look, we need something that can scare them, get them out of there and keep them out.” More Real People gather, all in suits and guns and talking machines.

“The Change.” The masks all turn when I speak. “We give them the Bastard Air, push them into the Water room. One way in or out, they'll come out.”

Terence nods. “It's not bad. They'd be infected, but the decontamination would kill the virus. All we need then is a way to draw them the rest of the way out.”

“We'll figure something out. The bigger problem is how we infect every, single one of them short of having her cough in their faces one-at-a-time.”

A voice from the crowd says, “Through the vents.” When they part it's Vanessa, the young girl. She points at me and says, “If she breathes into the air processor it'll go through the whole base. Every room.”

“She's right,” her brother says. “Remember what happened that time I threw up in it?”

Terence says, “I've tried very hard to forget.”

**

We leave the Bastard Water behind. After we pass the loud rocks and the fishing stores we come back to the bridge where we climb down again to avoid the cars on top. I count eleven Real People with us, plus Terence, all lowering down to the murk, quiet as the Death so no one wakes the sleeping Munies over our heads.

I feel the scream in Child's throat ready to be born, her small arms and legs wanting to run. First the lake, then the murk, and all on little sleep. She needs to be calmed, but my touch isn't calming her quick enough. I tell Terence this and he watches her face.

“What can we do?”

“My mother would tell me stories when she wanted me to calm.”

“Then tell her one.” Our feet splash through the green Bastard Water, the giant bridge legs on either side of us.

“I told her all my stories.”

“I'm sure you have one more.”

“Not good stories.”

“It doesn't have to be a happy story, you just have to keep her mind off what she's doing long enough for us to make it to the other side.”

I swallow and wipe the Bastard Water off the suit.

“I see,” he says. “I'm afraid I don't have any good stories for either of you.”

“It doesn't have to be a happy story.”

“Not happy,” Child echoes, listening to us.

Terence watches the Water with his gun. As long as we don't make a sound, he says, he'll tell us a story. So we don't make a sound, and he tells us a story.

**

There was a time, not long ago, when the two groups were one. They were friends, better than friends, family, strong from surviving the Change together. Ernie would tell stories around the dinner table while Rachel, a mother to them, healed their wounds. Cruz was the protector. Werner, the crazy uncle. They would laugh as they watched Tommy and Vanessa play with Neil's daughter in the control room, pretending to be grown-up things that don't exist anymore, like generals and soldiers. There was trust and there was truth, with Terence as their leader not because he wanted to be but because the group had voted for him. He was proud to be leader, and he did the best he could to keep all the people alive and happy. But behind it all, he could feel a river of jealousy, an ocean of doubt, and the trail, whenever he looked for it, led to Graham. His own brother.

One day, a man calling himself Vin showed up at the base wanting to trade for Supplies. At first they told him to go away, but then, when he showed them the kinds of things he had, things they hadn't seen since the Real Times, they let him inside.

This was a mistake.

During the trade there was a serious talk about the worth of his Supplies, which became an argument, which became a fight, and in the end Vin stabbed one of their group, a young man who got too close. Terence, not wanting any more trouble, told the man to leave the base and never return. Some of the group shouted that Vin deserved more punishment than this but Terence insisted that no one else needed to get the Death over this fight, that they should be happy it was all over.

But it wasn't over.

Three nights later, when some of the group were outside the fence, Vin came back. He was crazed on drink, and by the time they were able to give him the Death he had given it to two of their group; a man named Mister Kim, and another named Derek. Derek was Rachel's husband.

Led by Graham, many of the group blamed Terence for the Deaths that came to them. They said he failed to protect them, to punish Vin the way he should have been punished. They wanted new rules that made the leader responsible, even if it meant giving the Death. Terence didn't want to do this, he told them. He would not be an assassin.

Graham said he would.

Friends became enemies, the group was split, the family gone. Some were killed in the struggle, including Neil's daughter, Abby. When this happened Terence said he would leave, that no one else should get the Death because of him, but in the end fifteen followed him through that door, out that tunnel and away from their home.

Fifteen made new family, and ended up in the hotel at the center of the lake.

**

“Abby was about your age when it happened. It destroyed Neil. He's a good guy but Fear can make even the best people align with the wrong side.”

I put my hand up to stop him from talking. Under the wet foot sounds of the group I hear something moving in the Bastard Water, to the right, something big and slow passing under the surface with the silent moves of a hunter.

Terence asks me what I hear. Before I can warn him to pull his people away from the edge of the Water, it explodes at the feet of one of the older men. The explosion gives birth to a long mouth full of teeth that grab onto the man's leg and make him scream and shake.

“Gator! We got a gator,” someone shouts.

“Someone grab it!”

“Shoot for god's sake!”

“Oh my god oh my god oh-”

“Don't let it pull him under!”

The Beast thrashes, trying to drag the man into the Water. A gun is raised. I tell them not to do it but they can't hear me over the voices of the People panicking and falling through the muck so they Fire the gun, and the explosion sounds against the bottom of the bridge above, echoing loud. Two more explosions as they Fire again and again. Even though two of the bullets hit the Beast, one in the tail and one in the back, it doesn't stop sliding back into the Water with the man's leg trapped between its teeth. The man reaches his hand out to the others, his face full of the Fear, and they try to grab it, hold onto him, but they can't, and they have to watch the man get pulled into the Water until only his face can be seen struggling to stay above. Then that disappears, too.

One of the women cries like a Beast and runs into the Bastard Water but the arms of the group keep her from going in, including the arms of Terence.

“Don't do it,” he says. “He's gone. I'm sorry but he's gone.”

“I can help him.” Her eyes falling with Water.

“Look at them! That's what they want you to do.” He points out into the Water where the tops of more Beasts poke from the surface. She sees this and stops struggling, though the Water keeps falling.

“Come on everyone, keep moving, stay as close to the center as you can. We can mourn him when we're-” He goes quiet when when he hears it. I've been listening to it for the last ten seconds, but expecting it much longer.

Above us, in the fading Night, is the long, drawn-out croak of a Munie pulled out of its sleep.

Then another.

Then two more.

I gather Child and move her through the People. On the bridge above us the Munies crawl from their car-nests and sniff the air, their noses confused by the smell of the murk, but it won't last long. I pass Tommy putting his mask back on, Vanessa telling him he shouldn't have taken it off, both of them sweating that same smell, the smell of their parents, the way I smell of mine and Graham and Terence smell of theirs, because we can't escape these things, the same way the Munies are connected to the outside and there's nothing that can be done about that.

Our feet splash through the Water, slap, slap, slap, slap, with no way to keep them quiet. The Munies hear and hiss over the side, arms reaching down, claws swiping at empty dark, but they won't come down into the Water, not until the hunger is stronger than the fear and they have no choice. But we don't have time to wait for that.

Here's what I do about the Munies hearing me: I make more noise. I keep my foot sounds heavy and my breath loud until they follow, the four of them tracking me with their faces low to the concrete, and I pull them along between the bridge's cars until I reach the place where the ground curves up.

I slap at the Water. “Do this until the Beasts come close,” I say to Child, telling her to be careful of anything that moves. She pushes both hands in and shakes them around, splashing Water and Fear onto her face but still listening to me. I leave her and climb the curved land to where the bridge meets it, then I move out and away, holding the Bushes and small Trees to keep from slipping off and falling down to the Water, where the waves from Child's hands breathe out into the Night.

The Munies appear from behind the wall, sniffing and snarling half-blind. My first feeling is to snarl back, but I fight this because it won't pull them out to me as much as Real People words will. So I put that part of me away. I put it away, but I keep it ready.

“Stay away from me,” I cry, “please don't hurt me.”

The Munies pick up their ears, twisting their heads to hear better. They croak and hiss and push each other closer. They like these kind of words, the fear words, they hear them from Real People who are about to become Supplies.

“Please, don't come closer.”

The Real People below have caught up to Child. “What the hell are you doing out there,” Terence shouts. The Munies come out far enough onto the curved land for the group to see them. I hear them raise their guns and push them to ready.

“Don't,” I say, “you'll wake more.”

“Then what do you need us to do?”

“This.” Child shows him, splashing in the Water. As the Munies crawl out in a line, one after the other with fingers gripping the Bushes, the group below joins Child in making noises in the Water. The Munies hear but keep coming toward me. This is what I want so I back up further, leading them out by staying out of reach.

I want all four out here with me before I start.

“Child, how close?”

She listens to the Water. After some seconds she says, “Here.”

The first Munie is so close I can feel the heat of his pink skin, smell his rotten tongue as he croaks hunger. He would have attacked by now if he didn't have the Fear from the Water below us.

We both have this Fear, but his will come true.

With a scream I slash my nails across his throat, warm blood pushed out into the night. The sound of his croak is stopped short, and for some seconds there's only a surprised look on his face, no sound but the breath escaping through the new mouth in his neck and hot air making smoke in the cool. His gray eyes stare at me as he tries to take the breath back in but finds it won't come.

He takes his hands from the Bushes to wrap them around his throat, but this makes him lose his grip on the curved land. He falls, hitting the ground twice and splashing into the Bastard Water.

The other three Munies watch as teeth appear from the Water and snap into him from both sides, ripping and tearing at his arms. He would shriek if not for his new mouth. Shriek as they pull him down into the filthy murk.

This is why I needed the Water noises- to call the Gator Beasts.

I meet eyes with the Munie closest to me. She croaks, seeing what I am and understanding the danger she's in. When she turns to leave she finds the others in her way. They all begin shoving and hissing at each other and the one in the middle, smaller than the other two, is pushed so much that the group of weeds he's holding pulls out of the earth, roots ripping from dirt. He tumbles down the curved land to the Bastard Water and the Beasts that wait there.

Two Munies left. They try to get back to the bridge, but I go for them holding the Bushes to keep from falling. I slice the leg of the closest. He screams and kicks at me, a Fear kick that impacts my stomach and stops my Air for some seconds. When I get it back I move again and I catch up to them as the furthest is nearly at the bridge.

Another slice, this time across his back from shoulder to waist. He screams louder and lets go of his Tree. He doesn't fall, though, instead he turns and hisses and jumps for me, a desperate move over the Bastard Water like this, which means I put the Fear of the Death in him.

He lands on me, almost knocking me from the curved land, and bites into the first skin he can reach- my shoulder. I hear Child's scream in the Air instead of mine.

She's watching, as much as she can in the dim light. I refuse to let her see me get the Death. That will happen away from her eyes with her already safe and me giving it to myself. The way it has to be.

The Anger comes up from inside like a black Beast ripped from its cave. Before my eyes can make pictures of my next move I find the Munie's nose between my teeth and I'm biting in. The Munie roars hot, filthy Air into my mouth and my head fills with the crunch sound of his nose, then the sweet, warm taste of his blood. While the panic is still in his body I use my free hand to wrap around his neck and push him away from me.

He falls to the Water screaming, and when he goes under the surface he never comes back up.

One Munie left.

He had time to reach the bridge, so I work toward it quickly Tree to Bush to Tree, my head dizzy from giving three Deaths in such a short time, the taste of blood on my tongue and my lungs going like machines. I let go of the final Tree and jump for the bridge, up to the wall and over it where I find the final Munie crouched by a car. As I fall on him I see his head is covered with scars, most of the hair missing and the mouth hanging from past fights. This is a Beast who has lived through many days, many fights, many touches with Death that could have ended him. But he won't live through this one.

We pull at each other with open mouths, rolling on the concrete until we end up under the tire of a bus.

He gets on top of me. Above his head, all the pieces that make the machine move are rusted and falling apart. He screams, ready to put his teeth into me, but I take his jaw in my hands and push up hard. Again and again his head impacts the pipe above him until the metal cracks and dirt and rust spill out to cover his head and fall down his shoulders and into his eyes. He screams, blind, angry, clawing at them. I use the seconds it gives me to escape his weight and scramble out from under the bus.

The car in front of the bus has found the Death. Back when the Panic came many of the cars became this way: exploded, burnt, broken from impacts. This one is worse than some because it was split in two by the bus, the metal of its body sticking out like the broken bones of a fallen Beast.

The Munie crawls out from under the bus with his face red from rust. He wipes his eyes and hisses when he sees me with my claws aimed at him and my back to the broken car. There's a picture in my eyes, a plan, but it means I have to move faster than the Munie, and I don't know if I can.

The Beast charges, eyes open and teeth screaming. He's fast, too fast, and I hold my feet to the ground as he passes the bus and crouches and jumps at me. But when he jumps, something strange happens- it feels like my father's watch has come back to Life on my wrist, except without it's mind. Time moves so slow I can see dust as it comes off the Munie's body. I can see the rippling of the rags it wears as they flap in the air. I can even see the blood squishing through the vein on the Munie's filthy forehead, like a Wriggle Beast moving through dirt.

My body moves before the Munie can reach it.

His can't stop in Time.

Impacts the bones of the broken car with his soft belly.

Metal comes through the other side and out the back.

Blood hits the concrete, and a cry hits my ears.

Watching the Munie dangle on the sharp metal, I understand it isn't the watch that slowed the Time, it was the Change, letting me see the danger so I could move quicker than it. Doing that saved me from the Death, but the Change is the reason I need to give myself the Death at all, so it doesn't make me feel better.

The Munie struggles to pull himself from the car, dirty fingers feeling for where the metal sticks from his back. I go to him, and with my hands on his shoulder I push him further onto the car bones. A sucking sound comes from the Munies mouth, his arms and legs shaking from the feel. He makes one more, violent move. Then he stops.

When I turn, the group is with me on the bridge. Their faces stare full of horror at what I've done.

Boyd comes closer. “I'm not sure what you did more- give me confidence or make me shit my pants.”

Terence has his hand out, helping people climb the curved land to the bridge. “She looks after her own. We may not like her methods, but we can relate.”

“I relate alright. I'm just glad she's on our side.”

They wait for me to say something, but the words don't come, as if born in the brain but finding the Death before the tongue.

I have to calm myself, so I motion for Child to come over. Her face is serious, eyes lost in the dark. She sways on her small feet. Before I can reach her, she falls to the concrete.

When I pick her up, her arms are loose at her sides.

**

The others tell me to calm down so they can help her, but it isn't easy. Child is the one that calms me, and she won't open her eyes.

She's breathing, but she won't open her eyes.

The man they call Doc puts his hands on Child's face and pulls open her eyes to look into them. Hands hold me back while Terence tells me Doc knows what he's doing and I should let him do it. I understand this, and I want to, but I keep trying to move forward to stop him anyway. He rubs the top of his head where there are mask straps but no hair and he tells Vanessa to get him something from his kit.

“I've never examined a young one before,” he tells Terence.