The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (21 page)

We keep climbing. It takes some minutes but we reach the deep line, and we walk along it looking out over the tops of the trees while Boyd uses his machine. Finally it starts to make noise and he holds it to the rock and we follow him, listening to it go louder and louder until it seems to be screaming, and then he turns it off and puts it away.

“Look for a keyhole,” he says, feeling the rock, “something that doesn't belong.”

All five of us push and pull on the mountain rock, even Child, though she doesn't understand why, trying to find anything that might have been made by Real People. It seems like there's nothing, until Kate calls for us to come look. She pokes at a piece of the mountain sticking from the wall the size of her head.

She says, “It's not real.”

Boyd feels around its edges for some seconds until something clicks. Right to left the rock moves out of the way, behind it a face of metal with a hole in the middle. He asks me for the key and I give it to him, and he slides it in and turns. The metal face opens to show a vision screen with an outline of a hand, like a shadow. Boyd presses his hand to it and the screen turns to blood.

Terence says, “Is it bad?”

“Nothing I can't handle.”

“How long you think?”

“Five minutes most.”

“Really? That's it?”

“There's a reason you brought me instead of Werner, and it's not because he talks too much on car-rides.”

Boyd takes out more machines from his bag. As he uses them, Terence comes to speak to me.

He nods to Child. “How's she holding up?”

“Better with the sun coming.”

His eyes move to the sky. “I wish I could say the same for the rest of us. Listen- I need you to understand that things might get ugly.”

“Things are ugly now.”

“What I'm trying to say is, if this turns into a fight I need you to stay focused. Remember who's side you're on.” He looks over at Kate, standing at the side of Boyd. “She didn't mean any harm, you know. People get emotional when they see children, even Munie children, more-so when they've been through the kinds of things she's been through.”

“I can take care of Child.”

“I see that, but an important lesson I learned a long time ago is that being a family isn't just offering help, it's accepting it.”

“We aren't family.”

He nods, his face serious. “I'd settle for knowing you won't attack any of my people. What do you say?”

I look at Boyd and Kate. I look at Terence. “I say keep them away from Child, and I'll keep away from them.”

Boyd finishes with his machines. A piece of the mountain taller than him pushes forward and moves to the right, opening to show a mouth, and behind it a low, deep tunnel with Real People lights in the ceiling and a metal path in the floor.

Without any more words we walk through the mouth and into the mountain.

Into the dark.

V

With the voice of the outside to our backs, we walk. Our foot sounds on the metal path are the loudest sounds in the tunnel until the rock starts to move behind us, returning to its place on the face of the mountain. It closes with a loud boom that blocks out the birthing sun, and the long line of lights in the ceiling replaces it, but they're not the same.

Terence tells me to calm down, his deep eyes seeing how serious my face is. He's right- always stay calm, that's what my mother told me. That's what she always said, even when her fingers shook on the car wheel. Even when-

“Hey.” I put the hand light up to see Boyd. “Cut it out with the noises, it's creepy enough in here without all the croaking and growling,” he says, while Kate watches me over his shoulder.

Child stays at my side. She looks better than before, but I know it won't last if we don't finish our mission quickly and get back outside to the sun and the air and the things that her body needs.

“Are you ready,” I ask her. She shrugs her boney shoulders. “The dangers are almost over. This will give you a safe place to live, away from the Munies and the Beasts. You'll be able to walk and sleep with the sun on your skin.”

“Where Mother go after,” she asks.

“Away.”

“Stay with Child.” She rubs my arm with her small hand. My eyes start to burn so I move her hand away.

“I told you to stop calling me that. Remember to stay close to the ground if there's a fight, hide where they can't see you and I'll find you.”

“You not care.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Not stay, not care.” She looks at the tunnel wall instead of me. I try to tell her it's not true but she won't answer me, just keeps looking at the wall as we walk through the tunnel. Terence tries to smile at me but his heart won't let him.

We continue through the dark. Soon we're at the last ceiling light which looks down at a hole in the ground with a railing around it. Boyd aims his hand light down to show the stairs that live in it. They're built in a long spiral, the way water goes down the sink drain. Standing over them gives me a dizzy feeling like I might fall in and never stop, just fall forever through the dark and the death, and I know this isn't true, that no one falls forever, but sometimes feelings and truth are as different as real people and Munies.

Terence takes the stairs first and the rest of us follow, the round walls leaning in as if to whisper words in our ears.

We go down the drain stairs until we stand at the bottom in a room with yellow lights in the walls. A door in the floor has a wheel on one side, and at the middle of that a small hole.

This is the other side of the exit. I know it by listening to the way the air moves through it. When I pick up the stink of Munies and rotten supplies coming through the cracks, I know it twice as much.

Boyd talks to his machine. When he's happy with what it says, he tells Terence to use the key. It works. The wheel spins and the door swings up to let the filthy air escape, full of so much rot even the real people back away.

“Sweet hell,” Boyd says into his arm, “what is that?”

“A bad place for a Munie.” I look at Child, thinking of how just yesterday I almost let Graham take her and keep her down there, after he convinced me it was the safest place in the world for her. Seeing it now, in the light from Kate's hand, I realize how close I came to destroying the little one.

**

Standing at the mouth of the vision screen room, the lights in their hands pushed low, the people talk through their plan. In quiet voices and fast hearts they speak about what should happen and what to do if it doesn't. They decide to leave Kate with a gun to protect the exit, so we can get back without problems when we're done. At least she has some purpose here, I think, but I don't say it. Boyd puts his mouth to hers, giving her soft words before he goes.

The rest of us leave the vision screen room and go into the long hallway. The lights are bright, but the only sounds are sleep sounds coming from rooms far away, and the air voice breathing from the vents above our heads. Graham walked with me here yesterday, my hands tied behind my back as he tried to make himself sound important.

Terence points down one of the hallways. “The processing room is this way.”

“Are you sure? I thought it was this way.” Boyd points down another hallway.

“We don't have time to be funny.”

“I'm serious. I haven't been here in a while but I'm fairly sure it's this way.”

Terence looks at both in turn. They look at each other for some seconds, saying nothing. Then they turn to me.

Child and I both point the right way- Terence's hallway.

“Are you sure,” Boyd asks, then he says, “Wait. Don't tell me. I don't want to know how you know.”

The change bothers people. It lets them believe in monsters, and the worst kind, the kind with faces they know. If we had met only a few days ago, when I was real and hiding in the trailer, everything would be different. But we met yesterday, when the change had already taken me. That's what life is now- life is I'm a monster, even to the people on my side.

We find the room without running into any real people on the way. The air voice from the vents is loudest here, like a great, sleeping beast made of metal. We step inside and close the door. Boyd goes to the metal beast as Terence turns to me.

“Are you comfortable with this? I know you don't like being separated from her.”

“Comfortable, no. Understand, yes.”

“She'll be in good hands. I hope you can see that Boyd knows what he's doing. If I didn't trust him implicitly he wouldn't be here.”

Terence kneels, bringing his mask close to Child's face.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good.”

“You look better. Listen, I need to borrow your...” He glances at me. “...your friend here for a little while, but I'll bring her back soon. In the meantime, I need you to stay here and help Boyd. So I'll make you a deal- make sure nothing bad happens to him, and I'll make sure nothing bad happens to her. Sound good?

She nods.

“Boyd, how are we looking?”

“All patched in. I'll make sure the bypasses are wide open, that way if the kid so much as coughs into this thing you'll be able to hear it on the other side of the base.”

“Alright. Keep your ear on the line for the signal, I'll try my best to talk with Rachel, but I have a feeling she won't be in a listening mood until she gets a little inspiration.” Terence goes to leave, but Boyd stops him.

“Listen,” he says, “is this for real? You know what I mean. Are we really infecting them?”

“After they pass through decon they'll be good as new.”

“We hope. We're talking about the virus here, there are no guarantees. What happens if they're not cured, can we live with ourselves if we're dooming half the people we know to death or monsterhood?”

“It's a little late in the plan to be having this conversation.”

“It's never too late. Not for something like this.”

Terence breathes out. “I think the better question would be, which side of the wall do you want Kate living on?”

“That's not fair.”

“Nothing's been fair for a long time. The rules of the game have changed, and my mistake was not learning that soon enough. Would you feel better if you weren't responsible for anyone's death?”

Boyd shrugs. “Of course.”

“Then it's on me.”

“That's not-”

“It's on me, all of it. I'll accept whatever punishment the group sees fit.” He readies his gun and leaves before Boyd can say another word. I follow.

We stalk the bright hallway, following Rachel's scent. Terence is surprised to find her room has moved to a different part of the base, saying if I wasn't here with him he never would have found her. I tell him if it wasn't for me he wouldn't be here at all and he agrees, but tells me I'm bragging.

I quickly pull Terence into a small room filled with machines, and I put my hand over his mask mouth before I have time to explain.

Foot sounds come around the corner. We huddle in the dark with the machines as the sounds move past us, around the next corner and through a door. The person they belonged to was male, medium weight and didn't have a gun from what I could smell. Guns do have a smell- powder and oil, metal and smoke.

Light comes from under the door of Rachel's room. I put my nose to it.

“She's on her bed, with paper between her fingers.”

“She likes to read at night.” He looks sad about this, as if Rachel has already gotten the death. In a second he wipes this from his face like it was never there. He pulls his mask down to show his mouth and knocks lightly three times.

Rachel's voice tells us to come in.

**

“Oh my god.” Rachel pulls glasses from her surprised eyes and stands from her bed. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“You left the back door open. Now sit down.” His voice is calm but serious. He doesn't aim his gun at her but he does let her see it, pushed into his belt.

“Cruz was on watch tonight. Is he...?”

“Cruz is fine, and he'll stay that way if you and I can have a peaceful conversation.”

She stays standing. “Did you think you could sneak in here and we would just chat like old friends?”

“We are old friends.”

“Were old friends. Big difference, Terence, big, damn difference.” Her room is small. Over her bed is a light, and under it a picture of a city I've never seen. It's strange to remember that there other cities out there. I've only known this one for so long, it feels like the only city in the world. “I see you made friends with the monster girl. I assume that means you ran into Graham.”

Terence nods.

“And?”

“Are you trying to ask me if I killed my brother?”