The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Page 10

  He stands slow and wipes the Dirt and Grass from his pants. “For your information he ain't my Graham. No one leads me. You're messin' with the wrong dude, and given the chance I'll carve those words into your little friend there.”

  Child croaks, ready to attack.

  “You're not brave enough to try that.”

  He smiles. “You better believe I am.”

  I lean close and sniff him, taking the scent of the puddle. “Your smell says different,” I say. His face boils so red inside the mask that fog goes across it. “Now run to your Graham.”

  Without any more words he walks into the Wood toward the Base. He doesn't want to run, but when he gets out of sight, he does.

  Child pulls on the Suit leg. “Why let go?”

  “I want them to look for us in the City.”

  I start walking but Child pulls on me and points the other way, saying I'm going the wrong way, the City is back there. I tell her we're not going to the City.

  “I want them to look in the wrong place.”

  “Tell wrong?”

  I don't want to tell her that's what life is, but sometimes it is.

  **

  We travel along the Mountain, through the thickest part of the Wood. I know Graham will follow in a car, not on foot where he's weak, because People like Graham don't like to be weak. He won't go on the roads that choke with cars and the Beasts that live in them, so he'll have to travel where the Trees are thin and let him pass. This will give us extra minutes to escape, and if he looks in the City first, even more minutes.

  Child tells me how she kept away from the Real People, first by running, then by hiding where the Tree fell. I take all the words she gives me. They calm me and help me stay awake.

  “Night Eyes hurt.” She pulls on them.

  “Are they tight on your face?”

  “Hurt from loud. Make day in night.” She waves her hands in front of her.

  “I know they're bright, but this way we can walk in the Night.”

  “How Night Eyes?”

  “You mean how do they work?” I shrug. “My mother and father could tell you. I was small like you when the Change came to the World. When it did, learning got the Death.”

  I tell her that learning is what children did in the Real Times to become Mothers and Fathers. It's how they knew about the World and what to do with it and what to call the things that made it up. It's why I can't be her mother, because I never learned how, and that's why I'm only staying with her until we leave the danger of the City and the path through the Mountain. When I know she's safe I'll leave her in that place and then, when I'm alone again, I'll decide the best way to give myself the Death.

  I tell Child all this except the part about the Death. I'm not sure she understands.

  After some time the Mountain goes low to a crease between two sides, and I know we've found the passage through.

  “Want slow,” Child says.

  She doesn't look tired, but I have to remember she's been out of the Sun for a long time, and Sun is what her body wants as much as any other Supplies.

  Beautiful Sun.

  “Can you walk a little more? When the Sun wakes up this passage will be full of danger.”

  I tried this way once before. There aren't as many Munies as in the City from what I remember, but there are less places to hide from them. Only in Trees, and Munies can climb Trees.

  “Not mean Child,” she says.

  “Me? I can't slow down. The People are following us.”

  With her ear in the Air she listens to the Wood. “People not follow. Need supplies.”

  My Head is dizzy and the Suit is sticking to my Skin, but I'm far from any cans of Supplies or stoves I can heat them on. Before I can tell her this she says “Child find,” and runs into the Trees, away from my Eyes the way she does.

  Like I did to my mother in the circle of clothes.

  I know I can't catch her, so I use the time instead. With so many holes and tears the Suit is hanging off me. I rip off the bad parts and wrap the Silvery Tape around the edges to hold them to my Skin. The Air feels good on my Legs and my Stomach. The Suit is tight around my Neck so I rip some of that off, but it stays good without the Silvery Tape.

  I look up to see Child watching with a still Beast in her hand, one of the small ones with long tails and no wings that live in the Trees.

  Her arm is bleeding. I take it in my Hand and wipe the blood away to find two, small holes in her pink skin.

  “Did this Beast bite you?” She shakes her head. “What did? Was it a Slither Beast?” I make their moves with my Hand and she nods at it. “You shouldn't take Supplies from a Slither Beast, they give the Death with their bite.”

  She shakes her head. “No death.”

  “Their bite doesn't hurt you?”

  “Hurt. No death.”

  Maybe the Change takes care of the bite, kills the danger in the Blood. Graham said it turns Real People into perfect carriers, this could be another part of the Change I didn't know.

  The Blood is barely falling from her arm now. “You still shouldn't do this. I won't take it.”

  “No like?”

  “I can't make Supplies of the things you can. I need to cook Beasts before I make them Supplies, or I might fall down and not get back up. Do you understand?”

  She looks at the Beast in her hand, turning it over. Then she holds it up. “Need.”

  “Can't,” I tell her.

  “Mother change like Child.”

  I take it from her hand and throw it to the ground. “I won't eat it, and I'm not your mother.” I walk again, watching the place where the Sun will wake up. Child follows behind and chews her Beast quietly.

  **

  We make Nest in a small house that lives in a Tree, left by the same hunters who left the traps. They built small houses like this in the Trees so they could watch the traps. The Rain has been hard on it and the floor makes noises if we move too fast across it, but it hides our Nest from eyes on the Ground, and we have to thank it for that.

  You need to eat something.

  A blanket worn down by the years is crumpled and hard in the corner. I shake the leaves and Winged Beasts from it and pull it over me, telling Child she can lay in the Sun if she wants to but she has to keep her head down on the floor, keep herself from being seen from the Ground. I want to join her, to feel the warm on my Skin, but I can't because as long as I stay in the dark the Change will stay slow, and I can use the time to find safety for Child, bring her somewhere she won't be looked at as weak for having a bad foot. Looked at as easy Supplies.

  Listen to the child. If you keep going like this, you'll starve.

  The Sun looks into the house and through the blanket. I want it to stop, but also I want to get out from under the blanket and stand in it. The feeling is so strong my Arms shake, so I close my Eyes and think of the Real Times, when I could be in the Sun all day and not think about what it did to my Blood, when I could run in it and look at it but not too long, never too long, that's what my mother said. Maybe for one minute I could do that again. One or two minutes in the Sun couldn't be enough to bring the rest of the Change.

  Need to stop thinking of this.

  “Come here,” I say. She crawls over with her body low to the floor like I told her. She's a good child that way, does what I ask. She peeks her head under the blanket and I watch the yellow light dance on her shoulders. “I'm going to tell you a story,” I say, “about my mother, and about my father.”

  **

  The last Summer before the Change was the longest of my life. That was the one we took my mother to the busy place where she tried not to cry. She told my father to make sure to give me Supplies and then she got on the metal machine, and my father and I watched her become a dot on the Sun before we left in quiet.

  After two days of playing by myself in the Grass, my father brought me to a Vision Screen where my mother's face told me if I thought it was hot here, I should go there. I did think it was
hot here, I told her, and I did want to go there. She laughed and said she'd love to bring me some time but the work was full of danger and not a good place right now. I asked her when she was coming home and she said two months. I got upset. I started crying, so my father pushed off the Vision Screen. He told me we should be proud of her because she was giving something special to the World, and it only made it harder for my mother to see me upset. When he left the room I tried to push the Screen back on, but my mother was gone.

  This was my summer. Playing in the Sun all day, coming in when I needed Supplies, and my father, always at his desk, always surprised I needed them again. The best times were when he took me to the Vision Screen and my mother's face was there telling me how many weeks, days, hours and minutes until she got home. So many days I passed on the swings outside, with the Stuffed Beast I carried around sitting in the other swing, watching me jump off when I was up high to feel the Voice of the Outside in my Hair.

  One day I decided to go higher than ever before. I kicked and kicked until I went so high I could feel the Sky in my Lungs, but when I jumped off I jumped wrong and my face impacted the Ground. My Lip felt strange at first. Then the Blood fell. My mother always told me to touch the Blood to stop it, so I pushed the Stuffed Beast against my Mouth and ran inside.

  My father was talking to the People in the Vision Screen like he always was, and I tried to tell him what happened but he told me to be quiet without turning around to see. I tried to tell him again but he stood and rushed me to my room, and then he pushed me in and said he'd be back later and closed the door and locked it.

  I was never scared like this before. Never this alone.

  **

  Child is asleep. She needs it the way I need it, the way muscles and eyes hurt and the brain goes to snow and the thoughts can't find the path. A few hours and we'll be stronger when we fight, faster when we run. If Graham hasn't found us yet it means he's waiting until Night, when it's safer, or he didn't follow.

  She didn't hear all of the story. I want to tell her why I can't be her mother, why I can't give her what she needs. My mother gave everything because that's what the mother does, but all I did was take and live for myself for years in the Trailer. I hid up in the Mountain while the Death took over the World, and now, with the Change inside me, all I can think of is how I can't live as a Munie. Even though Child is a Munie and she's still good somehow, I don't know if I'll be the same when I become one. I gave one Real Person the Death already, and the Change had just started.

  There's a thought inside my Head that scares me, but I think it's the truth.

  Bad People make bad Munies.

  **

  The Sun is still looking through the blanket when my Eyes open, and Child has crawled out into it to sleep. I push my Head out from underneath and see through the Leaves that the Day is still young, which means we need to hide more, sleep more, but I have the feeling my Eyes opened for a reason, that my Body has purpose for me to be awake.

  Could it be the Day itself? Does the Sun speak to me now? I know I hear its whispers, but could it take me out of my sleep and ask me to join its warmth?

  The Tree shakes and so does the tiny house. It doesn't feel the way the Voice of the Outside pushes the Trees, more like hands, but Munie hands aren't strong enough to push a big Tree like this, and Real People's aren't, either. I don't want either of them to shake the Tree, but if it isn't them and it isn't the Voice then I'm worried to see what it could be.

  With the blanket held around me, I move to the side. What I see has me wish it was Graham.

  A Brown Beast, the kind that lives in Caves. It's on the Ground with its great, big paws on the Tree. These Beasts and I know each other. I used to have trouble with them trying to enter the Trailer, until I learned to hide the smell of the Supplies. Their noses are so big and strong, I've seen them smell a fallen Beast from so far I wouldn't believe it without seeing it.

  Now it smells us, and maybe the smell of the Beast that Child made Supplies of. It sees me and shouts, loud and with teeth. I back away to find Child watching.

  “Bad,” she says.

  “Have you met these Beasts before?” She nods at me. “What did you do?”

  She pulls her legs to her chest. “Wait.”

  I start to ask what we should wait for, but then I smell them in the Air. Ten years I lived in fear of them, but now for the first time, in this house up in a Tree, I know their true scent.

  “Munies.” Their scent is Death from the rotten things in their teeth, and on their skin from the way they line their Nests. There's a familiar smell to them, too, which I'm sad is familiar because of Child.

  She pushes me to tell her what I see with my Nose, knowing this is new for me. “Four of them,” I quiet. “No...five. Three male, two female. But there's something about them, something different.”

  “Too much Suns.” She points into the Sky. I follow the move of her finger as it goes from where the Sun wakes to where it sleeps, then does it again.

  “Too many days.” I sniff the Air and understand. “They're old.”

  “Make old leave nest. Make leave city.”

  It must be why I've never seen an old Munie. I always thought they found the Death before they got old, or the others made Supplies of them, but that isn't it. They're pushed from the group before they become a danger to it. They find their way out of the City and make new groups out here, to find safety and hunt together like one.

  “This is good, Child, old Munies are slow Munies. We can escape them easier.”

  “No good. Bad hunters.” Her face isn't calm when she says this, and I think I understand what she means. They're bad hunters, and bad hunters are hungry hunters.

  She looks serious, the way I looked in the Real Times when I talked about ghosts that lived in my closet, or tapping I heard under the bed. “Old hungry,” she says, “make supplies of all.”

  **

  If I can smell the old Munies, the Brown Beast can, too. It shows this by letting go of the Tree, turning toward them and waiting for them to come out of the Wood. There's nothing we can do but what Child said, wait for them to attack the Beast and then crawl away with the shouts covering our foot sounds and the scent of our escape.

  Bushes move, and then the damaged croaks of Munies dragging their dry legs against the Grass find our ears. The Brown Beast opens its mouth of teeth and shouts back, making them slow and spread.

  “Be ready.” We crouch on the other side of the tiny house, where there are no Tree stairs but there are enough branches to climb down. I keep the blanket around me to keep the Sun away. When we hear the screams of the old Munies, their hands and feet running at the Beast, we move.

  Child takes the branches fast, moving down to the first and then the next. Her arms and legs work together in a way which is amazing to see. Mine aren't as good as hers but they still surprise me when I drop to the second Branch and my feet keep me steady by staying above and wrapping around the first. Then it's the third and then the fourth with two smaller ones to go. Before I can check on Child again she's already on the Ground and running away.

  But her limbs are younger and more practiced than mine, and in the second I take to check on her my Feet lose their place on the Branch. My balance is lost and my Shoulder impacts the Branch in front. It bursts with pain and my Fingers lose grip. Before I can get it back I slip from the Branch and fall through the Air, bouncing off the last Branch and impacting with the Ground, the blanket floating down to the Grass next to me.

  My Eyes lose the Light. Then the Light is back but the sound is gone. Then the sound is back and filled with Munie croaks and Brown Beast shouts and Child is over me pulling on my Arm until my Legs tingle, so I move them around and stand and take the blanket and run with her.

  The old Munies are losing. One of the males is under the Beast, where it's already found the Death. A male and a female face the Beast with nails bare and Blood falling from their bodies, mouths wide and falling blood, too, while
the other female is to its side making loud moves and shouts to distract the Beast and give the others a chance to attack or escape. Their skin hangs from the claws of the Beast, but also from the claws of too many Days.

  Child leads me away, saying, “Quick, quick!” and we run between Trees lit loud with Sun, through Bushes and Grass full of colors I want to stop and see but can't because we don't have the time, need to get away from the Beast and the four Munies who-

  “Four?”

  The feel of nails on my Neck. My Lungs stop breathing as the nails pull me off my Feet and Sky fills my Eyes. Grass is under me and the last male hunches over me. He must have circled around to sneak up on the Brown Beast but saw us escaping and decided we were easier Supplies.

  I'll make him wrong about that.

  The dusty skin around his mouth stretches to let him hiss, but it surprises him to hear me do the same. It surprises me more. I use his stopped moves against him by scratching four lines across his chest and he screams into the Air in pain. In the dark center of me, in a part I've seen once before and only for the seconds I was ripping at Tom, something wakes.

  Something forever as the World.

  Something I like.

  My Legs wrap around the Munie. My Teeth find his arm and push into the warmth until its falling down my Face. It feels as beautiful as the Sun. The Munie howls but it doesn't help him, the others are gone or found the Death and Child is on his back biting into the soft shoulder, making him howl louder.

  We're being cruel, I decide, so I end it quickly.

  The Munie lays under us, so still I can hear the World again, and it sounds like a great thumping in the Grass, a shuffling that comes closer. I turn and find the Brown Beast close to us with its mouth wet and the teeth inside pink.

  It shouts to say it's about to run at us, to attack. I push Child back with one Hand and aim the other at the Beast's thick body, its fur shaking with anger. And even though it's as big as four of me, even though it could pull me in half with its claws, even though my Brain is screaming inside my Head and my Heart is choking on its Blood, because Child is behind me, I shout back.