The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Read online

  Graham breathes white eyes. “What the hell do you want? Just put your tail between your legs and hide in the corner, I'll deal with you when I'm done.”

  I tell Terence to get up. He pushes from under Graham. “What are you thinking of doing,” he asks, Blood falling from his nose.

  I aim the gun at their raised hands. “Giving the Death to him.”

  “I can't let you do that. I'm thankful for the help, believe me, but if you shoot him you and I are back to zero. Lower than zero, in fact.”

  My fingers go tight on the gun.

  “If you fire that we'll have a hundred monsters on us in less than two minutes, and I promise you we can't defend ourselves here. Graham's not worth that. Not to you, anyway.”

  “He's a bad person. He tried to give Child the Death.”

  “He's a sick bastard, I'll give you that, but he's also my family. If anyone's going to kill him it's me.”

  “I'm touched.” Graham spits Blood on the floor.

  “Please just let him go. I'll deal with him another time, you have my word on that.”

  I watch Terence's face. When Graham makes promises I don't believe them, but this one is different. I bring myself closer to Graham and tell him to go.

  “They told me not to come back empty-handed, what do you expect me to do?”

  I push the gun into his forehead. “Put your tail between your legs.”

  Anger fills up his eyes. “You're nothing but a bitch monster. You don't get to talk to me like that.”

  Terence says, “Obviously, she does.”

  Graham leaves, looking at both of us as he walks through the front door and into the Night. He glances back at Child and she hisses at him.

  Terence puts his mask back on, then he takes his gun from the broken things on the floor. Something small and metal shines on the living room floor. The strange pin, the one that opens the tracker Munie's room at the base. It fell from Graham's pocket during the struggle, but he didn't notice. The tracker Munie is on the floor with no head, so he doesn't need a room.

  I take the pin.

  “Thanks for your help. I have to get back to the group before they think something's happened to me.”

  I nod. Child comes to my side and he watches us.

  “How long have you been infected with the virus?”

  “Two days.” I don't believe the words that come from my mouth. Only two days.

  “You're holding up well, most people can barely talk by the second day. You must have a strong system.”

  “I sleep in the Day and hide from the Sun.”

  “That helps, but still, seems like more than that. What are you doing with her?”

  I show Terence her foot and explain how I gave it to her, how the Munies look at the weak as Supplies, so I have to find a safe place for her before the Change takes me complete.

  Terence is quiet. Then he nods. “I can't promise what the others will say, but there might be a place for you where we're staying. If you don't mind wearing masks I can bring you there. You saved my life, I owe you that chance.”

  I look down at Child. She puts her hand in my hand. I tell him, I don't mind wearing masks.

  IV

  The town is green through the Night Eyes, and quiet as anything after the Death finds it.

  “Don't be fooled, it seems peaceful now but half these houses have monsters sleeping in them. All it takes is to knock over one trash can to see.” Terence adjusts his mask in the moonlight as he looks over at us. “I probably shouldn't use that word around you two. It's just the one I've always used, and old habits die hard. ” He holds up his bare hand, showing the dark skin. “I know how weak that excuse is.”

  I shrug.

  “You don't know what I mean, do you? I suppose not everything has gotten worse in this world of ours, just very, very different. So I didn't ask, what do I call you?”

  “Call Child,” Child says. Terence already doesn't know what to think of her, and I know by his look that a name like Child makes it worse. I don't blame him for this- only a few days ago I felt the same way about her. I still do sometimes.

  “What about you?” He looks at my ripped suit, held on in places by silvery tape. The suit wears a story on it, one that I know but others don't, and when people look at it I see their wanting to know it, too. Before I can tell him not to call me anything, that he won't know me long enough to need my name, Child speaks up.

  “Call Mother,” she points.

  I listen to the houses. “We're not family.”

  “What are you then?”

  As I look at Child walking by my side, I remember something Neil said to me in the room with the Water and the red Light, when I asked him about the others in the base. “I keep her alive,” I say, watching Child's face wrinkle.

  “These days that's all we can hope for.”

  We walk through my old town, seeing the way time has ruined it with its rain and its wind and its unstopping Beasts. The streets under our feet are cracked. The grass grows wherever it can.

  Up ahead is a bridge choked with cars and buses from the time of the panic, when everyone tried to leave because they'd heard about the Change, but all they did was find the Change quicker, in groups. I was there when it happened, when Real People started acting like Beasts to each other. But I don't like to think about it, and I don't like to think about what happened when the real Beasts showed up.

  Terence stops us with his hand. “I hate to tell you this but we have to move under the bridge. I know you don't like it, and I don't either, but all those cars tend to have those, those...”

  “Munies,” I say.

  “That's what you call them?”

  I shake my head. “I didn't call them. That's what they are.”

  He nods. “It's strange that they should sleep above the Water like that, but when the sun goes down they tend to seek shelter wherever they can take it.”

  “I know.”

  At the bridge we go off to the side, where the ground curves down and we have to hold onto the rocks and bushes hanging there to keep from falling down to the Water. I don't like the Water that fills these low places, but the Winged Beasts do, and they show it by jumping from our feet and buzzing around us.

  When Child sees the great distance in front of us, the ten or twelve concrete legs stuck in the dirty, stinking muck and Water, she refuses to go further. I try to pick her up to carry her but she pushes me and backs away.

  “The lake is this way,” I tell her. We have to take this and pass it like all the other things we've passed, because this is what life is.

  The Night Eyes wobble on her head when she shakes it. “No want life. No want lake. No want this.”

  I reach for her arm to pull it but she moves away. Terence says she's doing it because she's tired.

  “Haven't you ever seen a child throw a tantrum?”

  “I haven't seen a child at all.”

  He stands with his back to Child, talking so only I can hear. “When children are tired they get cranky. You have to appeal to their emotions, offer them something they want and promise to give it to them after they do what you need. And if that doesn't work, a slap in the head helps.”

  I lean around him. “Did you hear that?”

  She nods and says, “Hear.”

  “Do you want to be slapped in the head?”

  “No want.”

  “Come here.” Child comes to my side, looking at the ground. “I don't know children,” I say, “but you Real People don't know Munies. We can hear all the things you try to hide from our ears.” I turn and walk, the bridge above me and the Bastard Water at my feet.

  I said “we” when I talked about Munies. I didn't mean to but it happened anyway. As Terence catches up, sloshing through the muck, I hear him say, “Real people?”

  **

  Tires stick from the loose Water around our feet. Other still things, too, like Skeleton Beasts and Fire-burned garbage and shells of leftover life from the real Times that drift a
nd float and find their places in the corners of corners.

  “Are you alright?” Terence walks at my side, his mask foggy inside.

  We Munies. We.

  “I feel I should point out that the virus is still ripping through you. Even if you did manage to slow it down it messes with the mind. Believe me, I've seen it. It makes for some messy thoughts.”

  I stop walking and tell him to be quiet so I can listen to the Water. There's something moving around in it, and I need to know what.

  My eyes close so I can hear it all. Every slippery Beast sucking in Water to take the air out of it, every tail and toe pushing in the dark.

  My heart goes slow, the world with it, until I feel it stop.

  And then.

  Right.

  There.

  My hand shoots down into the muck and grabs tight. It pulls up and out with the wriggling mass, the slimy skin against mine, and I hold up my catch: a Slither Beast, afraid of the Death. With a twist behind the head the bones crack inside. The mouth goes loose and I hand it to Child so she can eat.

  “You should be careful,” I tell Terence, “there are more down there.”

  He looks surprised. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

  “If we step onto the island without you they'll give us the Death.” I trail my fingernails along the surface of the Water, feeling the movements underneath.

  “You don't have to put up a wall. I can appreciate that you're on a mission, but there's nothing wrong with showing people you have a heart.”

  “When I do, they make Supplies of it.”

  He says nothing, but he agrees.

  We reach the end of the bridge where we spot two Beasts in the Water with long, thick tails of leather and teeth so big they stick from their mouths. We give them room and move slow, make sure not to bother them as we use the bushes to climb back up to the road. As we get near the top Terence turns to give me his hand, but he looks at my arm like he's seeing it for the first time.

  “When were you shot?”

  I look down at the arm, the hole closed up and the blood dried. “Before.” I climb the rest of the way without his help.

  “You're lucky you inherited the fast healing or you might have bled out by now.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Lucky.”

  With all the running we had to do I'd forgotten about the gun-hole in my arm, after that the pain went away like it was never there. It explains the Cave Beast coming to see us in the tree.

  Minutes later the ground curves down and the houses sit wider apart, filled in with trees that speak in the Night voice, leaning left then leaning right, and all the time my ears are open to what they're saying. For some minutes there's only the Wood, until the ground becomes loud rocks and we pass some small buildings with pictures of Water-cars on their fronts, behind their windows strange poles with machines at the bottoms and thin string from the tops.

  Terence says, “If you're looking for a fishing pole they have the best prices in town.” The words hit me hard, and I repeat them: fishing pole.

  Fish. The Real People word for the Slippery Beasts, the ones that swim in the Water. Such a simple word and I'd forgotten all about it. So many words have been lost to me, words that Real People like Terence could teach me.

  The rocks turns to grass as ahead a terrible danger breathes out of the dark and into the Night Eyes. I feel my body go still. Child's, too.

  It's the lake- so much Bastard Water the thought of it is like a Beast with teeth at my neck. Terence senses the Fear but keeps us moving onto the wood lines that surround the lake and form thin walkways where the Water-cars are tied.

  “This is one of the safest places you'll find,” he promises. “In all my years I've never seen a Munie out here.”

  “Until now.”

  “Yes. I suppose.” He seems bothered by this new truth so he moves on from it, bringing us to his Water-car, about the size of the trailer, at the end. He gets in and I hand him Child, her eyes shut tight, then step on with shaking legs to join them. The Water-car moves beneath us so I sit on the floor and Child follows.

  Terence unties the rope between the Water-car and the wood and pushes us away, drifting out into the great, black place.

  **

  With the stars shouting in the sky above, we float in the Night, listening to the Bastard Water impact the bottom of the Water-car once, then again, then again. What was the word Terence used back in the town? Peaceful? He would probably use it here, too. Call it peaceful.

  It isn't peaceful.

  “The engine makes too much noise, we need to put some distance between us and the shoreline before I turn it on. We don't want any of our friends out there hearing us.” He uses a long stick, the flat end pushed in the Bastard Water to move us further out.

  “Understand.” I pull Child closer.

  “So how did you end up crossing paths with my brother?”

  “Looking for these.” Touching the Night Eyes, I tell him about crossing the moat and climbing the fence. About what Tom tried to do to Child. About what I did to Tom.

  “Tom's dead?” His face is heavy as he watches the stick push through the Bastard Water's surface. “It was only a matter of time, Tom was a problem from the day we met him. The way he talked to women, always looking for trouble. I didn't care much for having him in the group, but these days you kick someone out on their own and it's a death sentence. At least when my time came, I had friends.” He looks up from the Water. “You swam the moat?”

  I nod.

  “And now you're heading to the middle of a lake. How is it you can cross Water when most of them would rather die than stand next to it?”

  I think about it for some seconds. “I've lived my whole life with the Fear. I understand that's what life is- Bastard Air or Bastard Water, Real People or Munies, it doesn't matter. The Fear is the Fear.”

  “You keep saying Real People.”

  “People from the Real Times like you, the ones who avoided the Change.”

  “I know the world after the virus seems upside down, like a hellish nightmare complete with demons, but Munies are just as real as the men and women lucky enough to not be one. You, her, you're just as real as me regardless of how our minds and bodies differ. You just have something inside you which pulled you into a different link in the food chain.”

  “What food chain,” Child asks.

  “The order of who-eats-who. You might say it's the thing that makes me smell so sweet to you.”

  Child pushes her head into my arm.

  “Don't be embarrassed. God gave us all appetites, it's what we do with them that defines us. A cat can get along with a bird, you just need to find the right cat and bird. Look at me- I'm a vegetarian, I survive on fruits and vegetables, meanwhile my ancestors were slaughtering pigs.” He takes the long stick from the Bastard Water and lays it on the Water-car floor, then he goes to the place where the wheel controls it. “It doesn't always take a virus to change us. Sometimes the strongest changes come because our hearts choose them.”

  He pushes a button. The Water-car growls to birth.

  **

  Terence steers the Water-car across the lake while Child and I crouch and shield ourselves from the spray that comes in. I keep my eyes shut and sway in and out of shivering sleep, until after some minutes I open them and see the lonely land being born into the Night, tiny lights on its edges. Terence aims the Water-car at the lights and slows us down, pushing the button to bring back the quiet.

  A man with white hair and a crushed ear helps us attach and tie to the wood lines. His face is serious, but he doesn't touch the gun on his belt when he sees us. Instead he looks to Terence for his words.

  “I ran into Graham.”

  The man is open with surprise, his chin and neck wrinkled. “What happened?”

  “I found him attacking these two. He's still up to all the dirty tricks we remember him for. When I stepped in he got the upper hand and nearly killed me.” He turns his face to sh
ow the damage on it. “They came back for me, saved my life even though they could have left me to die.” He meets my eyes. “They're looking for someplace safe.”

  “Terence, look, I can respect what you're saying but I'm having a hard time seeing where they'll fit in here.”

  “To be honest I do, too, but we'll put it to the group and see what we come up with. I owe them that much. If everyone decides against it, well, I'll die with a clear conscience knowing I tried.”

  The man gives Terence room to jump from the Water-car to the walkway. He gives us twice as much, pushing his nose and mouth into his arm to keep from breathing our air. His eyes say he's sorry but it's hard not to feel like a filthy Beast.

  We follow Terence past the other Water-cars, feeling the calm fall over us as we rub the grass with our toes and fingers, making relaxed noises with our throats. Terence comes back to us with lights in his hands and soft masks for our mouths so we take off the Night Eyes and put the masks on and hold the lights in front of us to see where we walk. It brings pictures into my head of Graham showing the base to me, except when Graham talked it was to sound proud of himself, like he'd done it alone. When Terence talks it's to sound proud of his group, like they'd done it together.

  He says, “It's a perfect set-up, right until the cold weather hits.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In winter the lake freezes over. A few months from now they'll be able to come across and we'll have to decide whether to lock ourselves inside or find someplace new.”

  I'm not happy to hear this. Munies don't like the cold and do much to avoid it, but the lack of Supplies makes them hungry and desperate. The island won't be a safe place for Child when that happens, and I know they won't let her stay inside with them.

  “I'm sorry, I thought you understood. Anyway let's get you inside and give you a room, we'll call a vote in the morning when everyone's awake.”