The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (28 page)

“You can reach it, Child, I know you can. I've seen you do amazing things much harder than this, things I didn't know could be done. This is only one more thing. Only one.”

Kate stretches as far as she can. Boyd's grip on the broken wall holds tight, his muscles shaking and his teeth chattering. I take a breath, hold it, keep it inside and push all sound away, all light, all world, everything that isn't this and here and now, everything that isn't Child and hands and hope.

And then, Child lets go.

**

Damn my munie eyes. Damn them for hating the dark and wanting the light, because nothing else matters except what's above me right now.

I strain to make out the shape of Child's hand as it lets go of the pipe, to watch it reach out toward Kate, her body shifting, her arm swinging, the two of them coming together so close, so close, and then, right as their hands slip past each other Kate lunges forward just a little more and grabs it. But this makes her foot slip from the edge and she falls forward, off the hallway, forcing Boyd to dig in stronger and catch her from dropping, catch the both of them. Kate and Child slam into the side of the wall beneath him, both crying out.

Boyd can't hold them for long. I look around for a place to go up but its all out of reach on the other side of the hole. I climb a table to be higher but it doesn't reach. Then above me I hear a shout. It's one of the other real people, someone from the base.

“Don't worry about me, grab them,” Boyd shouts through his mask.

Two more come to help. Their arms and hands come down to grab Kate and pick her up, drag her back into the hallway and Child with her, while the first holds onto Boyd and keeps him from tumbling over.

“How is she?” My head is dizzy, stomach upside-down. I can barely talk through it.

“She's banged up,” Boyd calls out, “but she's in one piece. Don't try to come up here, it's a real mess. We'll make our way down and meet you back on the street. If you see anyone on the way round them up the best you can.”

“I want to hear her.”

“She's right here, I promise you.”

My eyes and ears push to find her, feet struggle for grip on the table. “Child? Are you there?”

“Child here.” Her voice is strong. The sound of it loosens my shoulders.

“Go with them. I'll find you outside.”

She says okay. They all go, leaving an empty spot where the hallway meets the broken place. I don't want to look at it anymore, so I turn and leave and find a way down.

**

The building is quiet but I can smell the fight isn't over yet. There's too much fear in the air, and that means the munies are here, some of them at least, left crawling and hunting, left breathing. I don't know many things but I know this. That and hunger.

I come to the ground floor through a hole made by a fallen bathtub. Suddenly a voice I've been expecting comes to me.

“Still alive, huh? Can't say that I'm angry. More disappointed.”

Graham sits on what's left of a couch. His gun lays to his left, his hand next to it. His voice is calm in a way that puts a shiver to my neck.

“How do you do it? Manage to walk away time after time while everyone around you is dying?” He looks away from me to run a slow finger along the couch's arm. There's something different about him that I can't figure out. “If Mama were here she'd say it was God looking out for you. That you have guardian angels, keeping you safe from evil deeds. She was a sucker that way. She put her faith in all the wrong places.” He takes the mask from his face and throws it loudly to the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“Showing you faith never pays.”

His look meets mine and suddenly I recognize what's different about him. I smell it on him, see it in the deep of his eyes, the way they act in the light.

“How long,” I ask.

“Long enough.”

He means phase two. “Was it me?”

“You, the tracker, the girl, what does it matter? It's done.”

“You might not get the death. You might get back up.”

“And live my life as one of you? You may be happy that way but it's not for me.”

“I'm not happy.”

“Don't bullshit me. The power, the speed, I see how much you enjoy them.”

“Munies took my parents away,” I tell him. “I hate them with every part of me.”

“Then what's with the girl? Why is she so different?”

I think about it. “When I look at her I don't see a munie.”

“Touching. What about when you look at yourself?”

I say nothing.

“You see? You're a hypocrite. You say you hate those things but you have no problem being one.”

My head shakes. “Once the group is safe and I know Child has a place inside the fence, I'm going away.”

“Where will you go?”

I point to the ground.

“You could have done me a favor and offed yourself before you came to my base. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

“I didn't mean to-”

He puts a hand up. “I don't want to hear how sorry you are about how things turned out. Apologies are useless, start giving them now you'll be doing it the rest of your life. However short that may be.” He sounds so much like my father when he says this that no words come to my mouth.

An explosion sounds nearby, one, two, three gun shouts and then a click, click, click mixed with the screams of munies.

Graham takes up his gun and leaves through the door. We run down the hallway until we come to an open place, the door to the outside to our left, and to our right what's left of the munies. Six of them have Terence and Rachel pushed into a corner and waving knives.

“Graham,” Terence shouts, “we're trapped.”

Graham points his gun but doesn't fire, doesn't move, just watches the munies hiss and shake. Watches Terence and Rachel swipe their knives at the air.

“They need help,” I tell him.

“I pictured this scene so many times over the years.” He talks as if he didn't hear my words. “Just like this- the two of them about to die, leaving no one to question me. Ironic, the moment's finally here and I can't even enjoy it.” He sighs and looks at me.

“There's no point in letting them find the death now, unless you want to give supplies to the munies.”

He doesn't like these words. He straightens his body and with careful aim fires twice, hitting the closest munie in the back. Its dark blood bursts from it's chest and onto the munie in front of it. The rest of them jump at the sound, turn to see us. The shot munie falls to the floor, and all at once the rest of them hiss and scream.

“What are you waiting for,” he says, “sic 'em.”

**

I cut into them, feeling their skin on my nails and teeth. Graham's gun voice shouts behind me again and again, and there's no choice but to trust that he doesn't aim for me. A throat here, a gut there, it isn't hard to do once I find their weak place, rip it open, move on, feel nothing.

Three. Four. Five. The munies fall under our attack until only one is left, but as I finish with the fifth I let my guard down and the last one gets his claws into my side. I scream from the pain and hear his mouth sucking in air as it comes in for the bite.

He never reaches me. Terence comes up behind and pushes his knife into the munie's side. The munie roars with teeth straight up into the air. Terence stops it short. He pulls the knife from the munie's side and digs it into the side of the neck. The munie's eyes go wide, blood into his roar. He falls to the dust.

Terence wipes the knife off on his leg, leaving a line of black munie blood on his pants. “Ten seconds more and we would have been dead. I owe you.”

“You already owe me,” I tell him.

He smiles. Then he turns toward the door. “And Graham.”

Graham checks his gun. “What?”

“Thanks.”

He looks like he's about to say something, to argue, to fight the way his instinct tells him to, but he stops himself. Instead he says nothing and nods.

The sunlight coming through the door behind him changes. A munie appears, a female running too fast to do anything about. She must have heard Graham's gun voices. I hear Rachel shout to warn him but it's too late- the munie jumps for him, her face wild, her teeth out, and Graham only has time to realize what is about to happen. His face becomes soft, calm. I hear him breathe out one, final time before her teeth reach his neck.

Terence screams as Graham falls to the floor.

**

Crouched over his body, the female munie croaks at us with stained mouth. With a better look at her I can see her badly damaged face. The nose is broken, the eyes circled with bruises, and suddenly I realize a terrible thing. A thing I don't want to believe, but I have to because it's the truth, as hard as the truth can be, as much as it hurts the stomach.

I know this munie.

The broken nose, the bruised eyes, I gave them to her when I threw the machine at her. The last time I saw that face was a few days ago, just before I jumped from the tall building, fell through the open glass and landed in the plants and birds inside.

If I had given her the death, Graham would still be here.

Seeing the three of us, Terence and Rachel with knives, me with claws, she knows she can't attack us all at once so she croaks her way to the door, never taking her eyes from us, never looking away. She slips out of the building with us chasing her into the sunlight, Terence screaming all the way.

What's left of the real people stand in the center of the street, eleven or twelve of them holding each other up. Boyd. Kate. Neil is with Tommy and Vanessa, checking their eyes. Doc wraps his shirt around Werner's leg while Werner swears he's fine and Cruz tells him to let Doc do it. They turn to see the female running down the stairs in front of us and prepare for an attack by huddling together, back to back. They have no more guns, only their cut and tired hands.

The munie sees a fight she can't win. She starts to run away, down the street, but then she stops. Child appears from the middle of the group, some blood on her but otherwise safe, and sniffs at the bright air.

“Mother?” Child's face is open, her eyes wide. I'm about to tell her not to call me that when I see she isn't looking at me. Her eyes are down the street, on the female stopped and staring back at her.

I understand what she's really looking at.

Terence pushes past me, his face serious and sad and angry and so many other things as he walks toward the female with his knife. I grab him by the arm and tell him to stop.

“Stay out of this,” he warns.

“You can't give her the death.”

“The hell I can't. You saw what she did.” He points to the building with the knife.

“She's Child's mother.”

Terence looks at Child, seeing the look on her face. Then he looks at the female, and he knows my words are the truth.

“Come.” The female croaks for Child to join her, waving her over with dirty claws. Child stays where she is as if her feet are part of the street. She looks from me to her mother to me again. I've never seen her so confused. So lost.

Terence swallows, the face behind his mask wet. “I...I can't let her go. She has to die for what she did.”

“I'll do it. For Child, for Graham. You're not a hunter, a giver of the death like me. Let me do it.”

Terence looks at the knife in his hand. In his eyes are pictures- of Graham falling, of the female, of using the knife, of revenge, of anger, of death, of all the dark things that make the world, and as I watch him I see him push those things away, let them go from his eyes like a beast from a trap to fill up the knife.

He holds the knife out for me to take. I take it.

A few steps toward the female she starts to croak, moving low to the ground with her teeth out. Terence joins the group and tells them Graham has found the death. A few of them say the God's name and pull him closer. Child moves away from them.

“Child,” I say, “is this your real mother?”

She nods.

“I only wanted to help you. You can go with her if you want, she can keep you safe. Safer than me.” I give her a chance to say something, but she doesn't. “You have to choose, Child. Choose what's good for you. Choose what you want.”

“Wa-a-a-a-ant,” the female echoes.

As she looks from me to the female I can see on her face how much it hurts her. “Go with her,” I say. “I won't be angry with you.”

The city is quiet in a way I haven't heard before. Maybe the gun voices gave the fear to the beasts that nest in it, pushing the legged ones into holes and the winged ones into the sky, but it feels like the city itself is waiting to hear her answer, to hear Child's small voice, to know what will happen to me and to her and to the mother who reaches for her with wanting hands.