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

  With the Axe I push at the chest of the small Munie, careful, not touching the big one. After a few pushes its eyes open and look around, and then it sees me and I put my Glove out to tell it to be quiet. It understands, and I'm thankful for this too, so I walk around the long chairs trying not to make a sound, no crinkling of the Suit, until I'm above the head of the large Munie and its fat lips croaking Bastard Air.

  Lift the Axe with your Axe Hand. Line up your shot. Swing.

  The small Munie moves away from the big one, waking it up with a sudden opening of its eyes. A second later I cut its neck in half with the blade of the Axe, the ugly head and ugly body two different things, instant, the Munie dead but the sound loud, dull and wet, the dark blood a mist on the long chairs and the small Munie and the Suit, which I don't like. And in the corners I see the others, and they're awake.

  **

  We have thirty seconds to one minute on our side. Before anything, before hunger or anger, they'll fight over who's the biggest of them now, who gets the better nest with the dead Munie in it, which they'll sleep on top of to be sure of their safety. I know this as the Keeper of the Time, and from watching them, knowing them as much as anyone can know them. I use these seconds to grab the arm of the small Munie and pull it over the long chairs so we can go out into the night, away from the nest and into the City.

  I let go of the small Munie's arm and we run through the street and through the Wood that's grown in it. Already I hear the others behind us, chasing, faster than us, hungrier than us, angrier than us, and I know we don't have time, not enough time to get out of the City, and even if we did it would it only get us killed outside the City. This is why I'm not trying to get out of the City.

  I lead the small Munie to the stairs that sink into the ground. We go down to the place where the trains hide under the water, where they used to move free with Real People Inside them. The small Munie stops like I knew it would and I grab its arm again, pull it, drag the Munie behind me with the sound of the others coming close, and I walk down into the water.

  “No want,” the small Munie says.

  “No choice.”

  The small Munie fights me because it hates water. All Munies hate water, they're scared of it. I would live in water to be safe from the Munies if I could, but its not safe for other reasons, has too many things hiding in it, too much I don't want to think about, but it's safer in the water than out there with the Munies because one scratch would let the Bastard Air in and I can't let that happen, not now, not after all this time. Filled with bad things, these tunnels, but behind us is worse.

  I hold onto the small Munie and make my way in, right away floating from the Air in the suit, and I keep the Mask Mouth pointed up and my back to the water, my face in the inches between the water and the brick at the top, covered with slime and dripping on the Mask. The small Munie does its best to do the same, but it shakes and swallows water, coughs it out, swallows more. I wave the other Glove and kick at the water to make us move. It's slow but it works, and the Mask fogs up from the water and from my fast breaths and I try not to think of the Beasts that live in here, under us, their teeth, their tails, their cold eyes that see through the water, the Beasts that live in the trains.

  The Axe. You dropped the Axe.

  After a long distance, how much I can't see or tell or know, we get between two cars of a drowned train and kick over to the other side. Small bits of light begin to come through the Mask, dim light from the Moon, and I know we're close to the other stairs, the up stairs. I can't hear the small Munie anymore, don't know if its alive, but I can't do anything but kick and wave and pull it along.

  We reach the stairs and I claw at the wall with my Gloves until my feet can touch the ground, walk on it. Its hard but I use the stairs, strain and come up from the dark water. I pull the Munie out, drag its small body up three stairs. When we're clear and onto dry ground, I'm surprised to hear it cough.

  **

  We leave the City, head up into the Mountain. I have no Axe and I know the Munies aren't far behind us. We're tired but we climb, using the Trees to hold onto as the Beasts in the leaves shout at us, shout from the grass, shout from the sky, and our breaths, too, shout from our lungs.

  When we reach the Steep and trip through the garbage, I push the small Munie over the ledge and climb over. I look through the Long Eye and see what I thought I'd see but wished I wouldn't- the Munies, blindly tracking us up the Mountain, sniffing the Trees, crashing into them, sniffing again and crashing again. Their bad eyes are why we're alive. The small one looks up at me with those same bad eyes, that squeezed face. I look back into them, like if I look long enough I'll understand why I've done this.

  I lead us the rest of the way up and the small one stops when it's able to make out the Trailer in front of us. It points and says, “Inside? Want inside?”

  “We can't. The Munies will find us, no, we can't go in there.”

  “Munie.”

  “This way, through the Wood, come this way.”

  We take the small Trail through the Wood faster than I've ever taken it, even dragging the small one. I check the Watch to see how quick but find it broken, ruined, stopped by the dark water. I only have a second to be sad for it, for the time and for the job I failed. I didn't keep the time. It's lost forever now.

  We enter the Cavern as the sound of the Munies ripping into the Trailer with their claws hits us from behind.

  **

  I can see Inside the Cavern with the Night Eyes but the small one can't, so it keeps its fingers tight on the folds of the Suit Leg, follows my steps as I make them. Moving this way, awkward, careful not to rip the Suit, I lead us down the slippery stairs and into the lower part of the Cavern where the stream spits and bubbles past.

  “Water, hear water.”

  “Yes, we're not close, we won't fall in.” I try to calm it but it's eyes are wide and its chest rises and falls so quick I think it might go black at the eyes and fall down to the rock and hit its head. I do the only thing I can think of, what my mother used to do, which was to touch my face, and even though I doubt it will work it does, so we move again.

  We reach the Yellow Room and hide in with the Supplies, sit between some of the boxes. The small one comes in close and holds at my Ribs, and at first I try to move away, my instinct to move from the Munies, but then I see it won't hurt me, and so I don't move.

  From the mouth of the Cavern above us comes the sound, the one I was afraid we'd hear, the croak-croak sound. The small one is scared again and touching its face does nothing to quiet it down, I know if I don't quiet the small one soon, they'll find us.

  “Quiet. Please be quiet, they'll hear.”

  I think of my mother again, what she would do to calm me down. The thing that worked was always a story. So I tell the small one a story.

  **

  The last story my mother told me was about a world made out of sand. It was a great land of deadly Sun where people once lived among the great, flaming hills. These people who lived in the hills, they made buildings, great, big buildings right there in the sand which they built out of respect to their leaders. They would shape them like triangles sometimes, with great, big points pointing to the Sun, and they would build these places to put to bed these leaders they loved so much.

  And so other people, years and years and years later, would find these buildings, find them in the sand, and they would open them up to see the leaders inside because they were curious to meet them and all the things they slept with. They would come from very far away to meet them, but also to take the things the leaders slept with, which isn't a nice thing to do but it was in their nature to do it.

  As the story goes, these people found another building in the sand, years after all the other ones, when they thought there were no more to find, because this one was hidden far below the sand. They were very happy and very excited to find it, and like they always did, they opened it. But what they found was more than a leader and its things. I
t was an invisible Beast.

  The Beast ran at them through the Air, going from one person to the other, to the other, then to other lands and to other lands after that until it was in all the lands and attacking all the people. It attacked them, yes, and many of them fell, fell and never got back up. But some of these people didn't fall, and the ones who didn't fall, they changed. They became like Beasts themselves, but not like the one hiding in that building in the sand. These were Beasts that could be seen, Beasts made from the people who didn't fall, who didn't sleep, who were what people called Mune to the attack of the Beast in the Air, Mune to the Bastard Air.

  The lands, the times, they were changed after that. Changed forever, as if nothing was real anymore.

  **

  The small one holds tight, its arms and legs shaking against the Suit. Funny how I want nothing more than to help it be still, more than even hiding from the Munies who make those noises above. I understand that its scared of the black around us so I go into a box and take out a Stick Light, the ones I used to use before I realized not to, and I snap it between my Gloves and it lights up between us.

  I sit again. “That story. Haven't thought of it in a long time. My mother, she told it to me.”

  “Mother?”

  It was the last thing she told me before she took off the Suit. I begged her not to but she took it off and put it on me and said I'd grow into it, I'd grow into it, take my father's watch, I had to go now, and then she left and I didn't see her after, only heard her Inside me, heard her Inside.

  The small one touches the Mask, curious like the people in the story, to see what's Inside, but then it jumps when a loud noise comes from above us, from Inside the Cavern, a crash against a Spike in the floor and then a blind slap down to the rock. Then it begins to cry, really cry, and as I watch it I know the name, that name I thought of before, it's as true for the Munie as it was for me.

  “Child,” I say, and it sounds hollow Inside the Mask.

  Calm the Munie down. Keep it quiet, any way you can.

  I release the clips around the neck, hear the s-sss of the Air coming in. I take the Mask off and lay it on the rock next to me, feel the cold on my Face, smell the moist plant smell of the Cavern. I take the small one's fingers, warm like fever, and put them to my cheek. She stops crying when her skin touches skin.

  She looks up and sees my face. Sees my eyes for the first time.

  “Mother?”

  “We used to say Woman.”

  I hold the Light in the Light Hand, the small one in the other, and we listen to the Munies coming to us, slapping and stumbling and clawing through the black. Without the Trailer, without the Mask, without the Watch there's only the waiting, the waiting to see what comes first- the Munies, or the Death, or the Change.

  II

  Something happens Inside me. The sound of the Munies does it, slipping and stumbling down the Real People Stairs, their croaks wet on the Walls and the small one's heat pushed against my Side. With the Light in the Light Hand making Shadow Beasts, I remember an important thing.

  I don't want the Death.

  The small one shakes her head. “No want.”

  I can't take back the Mask but I can fight the Munies. If I'm lucky it might give me enough Time to decide how I get the Death.

  The Supplies. One of the boxes has something that might help.

  I know which box it's in because I know what's in every box in the Yellow Room, made sure to learn them and remember to keep runs for Supplies fast because that's what life is. It's using the Time to prepare, in order to get more Time.

  “You won't see anything for some minutes, but it's safe. Understand? Everything will be safe.”

  With the Night Eyes on the Cavern is green again. I move the small one over to the Wall and tell her to stay, not to move no matter what sounds she hears. She pants against the Rock, making her body flat, but her eyes are big and open.

  “I have the Night Eyes. I can see them but they can't see me. Everything will be safe.”

  I say these things without knowing they're true, because they make her breathe slower.

  I throw the Light Stick across the Cavern and into the gurgling Water that rushes. It's taken away, still bright as it disappears under the Rock and deeper Inside the Mountain where only the Water goes. The Munies are so close they hiss at the Water until it goes dark again.

  Go to the box. Find it.

  It's still there, in the third box from the Yellow Room's mouth. The Light Gun, another thing I took from the Building with the sharp fence, but I never wanted it in the Trailer, didn't trust it. Never trust things that burn, not with Munies around. With their bad eyes they're drawn to the Light like the small Winged Beasts are, coming from every way to see it.

  I take the Light Gun and a second Light Bullet and run back to the small one, making myself flat against the Wall, my left Arm near the Yellow Room's mouth. The Munies are so close now I can hear their dirty fingers scraping on the Walls, feeling their way through the dark, fighting with each other to reach us first.

  Aim the Light Gun into the Cavern and fire.

  I close my eyes to keep the Light from entering the Night Eyes and I pull. There's an explosion in my Ears and a crackling whoosh that speeds away from my Chest and into the Cavern, then hissing screams that are too close, far too close. I open my Eyes and see the side of Munie teeth, and above them a dark eye.

  The Light Gun has failed us.

  But then, one of the far away Walls becomes Fire where the Light Bullet hits it. The Munie twitches and runs off hissing, and from around the Wall more of them show, another Munie and another Munie all running into the Cavern, past the Yellow Room and toward the Light. For the first time since the Real Times, I'm thankful for what the Change has done to them.

  The Gun is empty so I push in the second Bullet. “Stay quiet,” I whisper. Her hand finds mine and I lead her out of the Yellow Room, telling her not to let go.

  The Waterfall is loud. This is good for hiding our Foot sounds from the Munies clawing at the Rock far behind us. It means we might escape. If we can get up the Stairs and Outside before they know we're gone, before the Fire fades from the Rock, they'll never find their way back Out in Time to catch us.

  I stop. The small one feels and stops, too.

  There's a Munie in front of us, blind and croaking. It's larger than the others and it's standing between us and the Stairs, bleeding from scratches on its face and chest that look new. From the size of the Munie, the same as the one I took the head from back at their nest, I understand what it is. It's the New Largest of the group. I know how Munies work as well as anyone can know them, so I know the New Largest always has the most to prove. They need to stay on top. Show the others they're not weak.

  It sniffs and starts to move, slowly testing the Cavern Air, so I push the small one close to the Wall and out of its path to let it pass in the black, and we stay quiet, quiet as possible.

  Suddenly it turns and looks into my Eyes. It isn't possible, Munies can't see in the dark. It tastes the Air with its Slime Beast tongue and it knows. It knows I'm here.

  Without the Mask on it tastes me in the Air.

  “Run.”

  The Munie jumps on me before I can move. My Side slams into the Wall and the Light Gun falls from my Hand and I hear it bounce once, twice on the Rock as the Munie holds me against the Wall by my Head. With the terrible croaking in my Ear I punch it, kick it, try to get its dirty fingers away from my Face but it's like I do nothing. It doesn't move, only hisses and holds me, breathing Bastard Air into my mouth and nose, making me choke.

  The Munie shows it teeth to my Neck, ready to make me Supplies. Then it screams in my Face and I shut my Eyes because I don't want to see the Death come. I've kept it away so long I don't want to see its face now, so all I can do is keep them shut and wait for the Death.

  The Light Gun has failed me, and I've failed the small one.

  But the Death doesn't come.

  After
six seconds my Eyes open and see the Munie's head pulled back, howling, but not the victory howl that comes when they hunt Supplies and bring the Death. This is a rare howl, the pain howl. The Munie lets go and I fall to the Ground, my Legs under me and my Back against the Wall. I'm surprised to see the small one's face when I land, not just in front of me but biting the New Largest Munie, her small, sharp teeth stuck in its leg. Her tiny face is scared but ferocious, like when she faced the Hunter Beast by the Steep.

  I hear someone laugh and realize it's me, glad to have her with me.

  The New Largest Munie pries her loose and tosses her away. She folds to the Ground with its filthy, black blood on her lips. The others, still at the far Wall where the Water disappears, have heard the howl and are croaking their way over with dirty fingers stretched. I look all around for the Light Gun as the New Largest finds the small one, grabs her and picks her up, and she squirms in its hands but it shakes her and then, listening to the dark, throws her into the rushing Water.

  It turns back to me, proud of what it's done the way the teeth show. I shouldn't think of Munies as having emotions but sometimes it seems like they do. Behind it the small one is being carried away, her small hands reaching out for help, her eyes full of Water-terror.

  The Light Gun is in front of you.

  I see it half in puddle and reach forward and grab it, aim it at the Munie's croaking head. To my right the others are coming. The only reason they haven't reached me is their blindness, otherwise I would be covered in them. The New Largest can't see me either but it can smell danger the way Munies can.