Wolves

Copyright © 2016 by D. J. Molles
Published in 2016 by Blackstone Publishing
Book design by Andrew D. Klein
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First printing: 2016
ISBN 978-1-5047-2591-0
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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For Laila

PART 1

The Wanderers

He stood at the northeastern corner of the field and looked out on his work, the labor he'd done under the sun. He felt satisfied. Fulfilled. Deeply content with all that he'd done, all that he'd accomplished. Stretching in front of him in a big, open expanse were his barley fields.

They were not
his
barley fields, so to speak. They were the commune's. They were everybody's. But he'd been the one that staked it off. He broke the dirt. He dug the trenches. He broadcast the seed. He watched them grow every day with patience and excitement.

Now, they were so close to harvest, the fields turned to a golden brown and the bearded heads of two-row were beginning to droop toward the earth.

“You did good,” his wife said beside him, giving him a rub on the back.

He looked at her with a smile on his lips.

It had been a long time. A long time since they had been at peace.

His wife, Charity, on his left. His young daughter, Nadine, on his right.

His wife and daughter, both with the same wide, blue eyes, the same easy, broad smiles. They were both good people, better than he could ever be. Better than he deserved. He held on to them tightly.

The barley caught the glow of the setting sun behind it, and when he looked to his right and left, he could see how it struck their blonde hair, and he thought their hair was the same exact color as those fields, and it gave him a sense of great symmetry to his existence.

Hold on to this
, he told himself in that moment.
Always remember this
.

And he did.

But memories fade.

Chapter 1

He is dying.

That much has become clear. Death sits in the aching tension in his muscles, how they refuse to propel him forward even one more step. He can feel it in the cramps in his stomach, and in the throbbing of his head.

It has been two days since he last tasted water.

Lost in this endless ocean of desert, and no matter his desperation, every horizon was only more desert. His desperation wasn't enough to get him to the other side. It had never been enough.

And so he falls, down to his knees, all the strength coming out of him, all of his miles given up, unable to put one foot in front of the other—that is what he has always told himself to do:
One foot in front of the other, Huxley. One foot in front of the other.

He stares with hollow eyes at the sandy ground in front of him. Underneath that half inch of windblown dust, there is blacktop. Sometimes he could even see it, far ahead, little bits and pieces of it peeking out, only for the wind to cover it again in more sand. Constantly appearing and disappearing like a magician's trick.

His mouth is like paper. His lips cracked and peeling. His beard is long and unkempt. His dark hair is coated with desert dust, as it coats his entire body and all of his clothing, making him look like another piece of the landscape. He is tall, and skinny in the way that only a desert wanderer can be—every bit of fat stripped from him like all the soft things of the Old World, and the sun and wind have weathered him far beyond his forty years.

Maybe the next horizon … 

Maybe there would be a town. Maybe there would be water.

Maybe there would be an end to these goddamned Wastelands.

But he will not know. He will not see the next horizon. He feels the certainty of his end like a buzzard's shadow cast over him.

I was weak
, he thinks bitterly.
I was weak, and now I'm going to die.

For nearly eighteen months he has tried, and he has tried, and he has tried. But he is not a match for these Wastelands. He has been blown back and forth in all directions, and time has slipped away faster than he could ever have imagined, and now the trail is cold, cold, cold, like a body long dead.

Eighteen months was too long to hold out hope.

And he feels like a fool for going on as long as he did.

Didn't he know that hope had died a long time ago?

He hears a voice calling out to him in the desert, but he knows it is not real. He doesn't want to look up to that shimmering eastern horizon. He doesn't want to look, because he knows who he will see, and he knows that she is not real.

She is gone forever.

He lays himself onto the ground, knowing this will be the place that he will die. He closes his eyes against the sun, tastes dust and heat, and tries to reach into his fading mind for the thing he promised himself that he would hold on to forever, the thing he would never forget.

Time and violence and misery have made it worn and faded.

The barley fields with the sun setting behind them. The glow of the barley, the glow of his wife's hair, his daughter's hair, all like smelted gold. The three of them standing there. Happy. Peaceful.
Hold on to this forever … 

His dying words are just a whisper: “I'm sorry … I'm so sorry …”

Chapter 2

Vaguely, the sensation of someone's hand, tilting his head up.

There is also the background ache of his body. The way it is nearly dead. The dryness on his tongue. The crust of the sand in his eyes, in his ears, in his beard. The warmth of the sun.

And also, the guilt of having given up. The recrimination of failing, breaking promises.
Weakness, you were weak, too weak to survive 
…

And something else he'd not felt before.

Something cold and hard. Like the diamond core that is left after a star burns itself out.

He thinks,
Why is someone touching me?

Did I die?

Can you feel things after you die?

Water. Flooding his mouth.

It is a shock, almost electric.

He coughs and splutters at first, but on some instinctive level he knows he can't let that liquid escape his mouth. He opens his mouth for more,
more, please God, more!

“Easy,” a voice says.

A
real
voice.

Now Huxley opens his eyes.

Reality pries at his retinas. The day is still there, but it is fading, the light is dwindling in the sky, and shot through with oranges and reds. A face is hovering over him, indistinct. It is a man, and there is a canteen being set against his open mouth again and water is being poured in.

Huxley drinks, even as he feels terror.

People do not help each other in the Wastelands.

Weakly, Huxley pulls away, swallowing the water in his mouth. The man retracts the canteen and Huxley squints to try to get a better look at him. He can tell the man is very light-skinned, gone red from the desert sun. His hair is almost white.

“Why are you helping me?” Huxley croaks, his voice barely audible.

The pale man is watching him, but Huxley can't really see his eyes. The man's face is backlit by the orange-glowing sky. He tries to push the canteen to Huxley's mouth again, and Huxley wants it, he wants it badly, but he resists it for a second time because he doesn't trust this man, he doesn't know him … 

There is the sound of a dry chuckle. “Drink the water, you jackass.”

“Why are you helping me?” Huxley asks again, a bit louder.

“Because you'll die without me. Now drink the fucking water.”

Huxley gives in. The pale man puts the canteen to his lips again, and this time Huxley leans into it, drinking as deeply as he can. Where did this water come from? Who is this man? And why is he helping a stranger on a desert road, where water and kindness are nowhere to be found?

Live or die, it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

The water is painful when it hits Huxley's stomach. He thinks that he's been poisoned, and unconsciousness creeps up on him again. It bats at the edges of his brain. One minute he is present, the next he is under.

He is being dragged. He feels his heels scraping across the road, then the soft sensation of sand. He can feel someone's hands hooked under his armpits. He tries to open his eyes, but he can't quite manage it. And Nadine's voice is calling out to him, as though through miles and miles of tunnel. Calling out to him as she always does in his nightmares, and in the half-light between sleep and awake.

No, she is gone. She has been gone for a long, long time.

He goes under again, this time to blessed blackness.

He stays there for a time. Swimming in nothingness. Floating in the dark.

At times, he comes up a bit from unconsciousness, and he can feel the hands on the back of his head, he can feel the water on his lips. More water than he can remember having in a very long time. And then he fades again.

The next time he opens his eyes, it is night. There is a tiny fire that warms his feet. He stares at it, blankly. Fire. Yes. It is fire. Why is this strange? His brain is scattered parts, trying to piece themselves back together. Things are not connecting just yet.

It's like he has truly died on the road and his brain broke apart and now it is reforming itself, gathering the pieces into a similar machine, but subtly different.

The fire. The fire. Did you make the fire?

I don't recall making the fire.

Where am I and how did I get here?

He can smell the night air around him. Crisp and cool, only very slightly tinged by the smell of the wood smoke. The front of his body is warm from facing the fire. His back is cold.

He shifts, plants his hands on the ground. He is sitting in sand.

When he moves, a shape stirs on the other side of the fire, causing Huxley to jolt, for fear to run through him like priming an engine. His hand goes to his belt, to the knife that he keeps tucked away there.

The shape rises up.

A man. A pale man. With white-blond hair.

Huxley stares at the man, his heart slamming his chest as his fingers lock onto the handle of his knife. He doesn't know this man. He is ready to gut him, except for the strange memory, the isolated image of this man hovering over him, pouring water into his mouth.

The man on the other side of the fire looks at Huxley's hand, gripping the knife. He holds up both hands to show he means no harm. In one hand, the canteen is held.

“Easy, brother,” the man says.

Huxley forces himself to take long, deep breaths, trying to calm his heart. He needs a moment to piece things together. Something is telling him that he doesn't need to fight this man, but he is not putting everything together just yet, so he still keeps his hand on the blade.

“You,” Huxley says, as concepts and images meld into actual memories. “You gave me water.”

The man nods.

“Why?” Huxley says.

The man on the other side of the fire seems to realize that Huxley is not calm enough for him to approach with the canteen, so he just makes sure the cap is on tight and then tosses it over the fire. It lands in front of Huxley with a thud in the sand. Huxley can hear the water sloshing around inside. His mouth aches for it. He stares at it for a moment, but then he forces his eyes back up to the stranger.

The man has that type of coloring that borders on a complete lack of pigment. Even his eyes are pale. He has a certain ghostly aspect, but his skin is the thing that makes him real. It's suffered greatly in the sun and peels and looks painful. But despite all of that, there is something about his face that is … friendly?

Perhaps that isn't the right word. More like … familiar.

The stranger watches Huxley, as he is being watched, and then laughs, a short, sharp bark of laughter. He has big, white teeth. He seems like he smiles easily. He regards Huxley evenly, the smile lingering. “Look, brother. Maybe you're overthinking this a bit. You basically have two options. First, you can drink the water and live. Second, you can refuse the water, I take back my canteen, and you wander off into the night to die. It doesn't matter to me.”

Huxley looks at the canteen, lying on the ground, just right there in front of him. “What's your name?” he asks, still looking at the canteen.

“You can call me Jay. You?”

Huxley loosens his grip on his knife. “You can call me Huxley.”

That is not his real name, and it's also likely that Jay is not the stranger's real name. Everyone has their own reasons why they do this. For Huxley, his real name is something that doesn't belong to the Wastelands. It's something that lies behind him in the past. It was the name that his loved ones called him. It has become a sacred shrine.

“Well.” The man called Jay lowers his hands. “Good to meet you, Huxley. What'll it be?”

Huxley's eyes jag up. “What do you mean?”

Jay gestures to the canteen. “You gonna drink? Or you gonna die?”

Huxley can still feel how his heart knocks—that heavy beating, like there isn't enough liquid in his blood for it to be pumped easily. He still feels light in the head, feathery in the chest. But he can feel the water the man has already given him—it is heavy in his stomach.

He clears his throat and reaches for the canteen. He takes it up out of the dirt, brushes it off, then uncaps it and takes a swig. There is maybe a quarter of the water left in it.

After another swallow or two, he caps it again and holds it up. “Thank you.”

Jay walks around the small fire and takes the canteen, then retreats to his side of the fire, and sits in the dirt with a tired sigh. He stares into the flames.

Huxley licks what little moisture is left on his lips. He clears his throat and it doesn't feel like paper for the first time in two days.
It makes no sense, but it doesn't need to make sense. The man is right. I can take his water and live, or be stubborn and die.

But what do I have left to live for anymore?

Huxley draws his legs up, props his elbows on them.

There is that feeling again. That feeling that his burnout has left him with a solid, dense core of something. Whatever it is, it is heavy. He can feel it like a weight on his chest. But there is also something comforting about it. A blanket can be heavy too, but it keeps you warm at night.

He looks around the little campsite. He can't really see much beyond the glow of the fire. There are a couple of rocks near them, and Huxley's back is against a small, withered tree. Other than that, it's just the fire, and the two men around it, like they are all that is left of the universe.

Jay breaks the silence. “Where are you headed, Huxley?”

Huxley considers the question for a moment before answering. “I don't know.”

It is an honest answer. He has finally admitted that hope is dead, so there is no purpose for him now. No real reason to be going … anywhere.

Jay prods the fire with a stick. “You don't know.” He says the words slowly. Tasting them. “Seemed you were heading east.”

“Yes.” Huxley nods. “I was heading east.”

Jay pulls the poker stick out of the fire. The tip of it glows red, then turns black and smokes. Jay watches it for a moment, then sets it down. He leans forward, clasping his hands together and looking at Huxley with those oddly pale, piercing eyes.

“I'm going to tell you something,” Jay says, quietly. “You don't know me. I don't know you. But I'm going to say it anyway, because I think you need to hear it. Whatever has driven you this far, whatever you're hoping to find out east … let it go. There's no hope out east. There's only blood and death. Trust me on this. Please, please trust me. If you cling to that hope, whatever it is … it'll drag you to your death.” Jay leans back and grabs up his stick. Almost as an afterthought, he says, “Hope makes you weak. And the weak die.”

Huxley stares into the fire, the words rolling over and over in his head.

Let go of the hope. It will lead him to his death. It will make him weak.

“What about you?” Huxley says. “Where are you going?”

“East.” Jay smiles strangely at him. “But I have a purpose, Huxley. I have no hope. I don't know what's out there, but I know it's blood and death, and I don't expect anything else. In fact, that's exactly what I'm looking for.”

Huxley shifts uncomfortably and doesn't respond. He is lost in thought and memories, filled with smoke and screams. They form a stage in his mind, occupied by three players.

One is his wife. One is his daughter.

The third is a shadow in the background.

A man. Huxley doesn't know the man. Can't picture him. All he knows is that the man has a scorpion tattoo on his neck. Huxley has pictured it many times, but even that is not firsthand knowledge. It was only words on dying breath. So in his thoughts, sometimes the scorpion tattoo looks one way, and sometimes another. Sometimes it is big and colorful, and sometimes it is small and black.

The man with the scorpion tattoo.

Huxley leans fully back into the tree. He feels sick to his stomach. The sensation of his body hovering around that moment between death and coming back to life. His whole body feels weak and shaky. He rests his hands on his knees so that Jay cannot see them trembling.

“Can I ask you something?” Huxley says, quietly.

Jay rubs his chin, then motions with his hand—an invitation for Huxley to speak.

“Have you ever encountered the slavers?” Huxley asks.

Jay is very still for a moment, his eyes locked on Huxley's. After a moment, the fingers of his right hand start to flick off of his thumb, a steady, purposeful movement. Like there is something on his fingers that he doesn't like the sensation of.

“Yeah.” Jay's voice is flat. “I've encountered them.”

Huxley puts a hand down into the sand and presses his fingers into it. Slavers. Ruthless men who come upon settlements and caravans, striking hard and fast. They kill the men, the infants, and the old. They take the children, and sometimes the women.

Huxley realizes he's gripping the sand. He lets it drain through his fingers.

“Where do the slavers go?”

“East,” Jay says. “They always go east.”

“I know they go east,” Huxley brushes the sand from his hand. “But where do they
go
?”

Jay seems to become cognizant of his flicking fingers, and he clasps one hand in the other, interlacing the fingers to still them. “You mean where do they take the slaves?”

“Yes.”

Jay shakes his head. “I don't know. Somewhere east of us. Someplace that wants slaves.”

Huxley's eyes glimmer with the flames. He is looking at the coals. The hottest part of the fire. The little bits and pieces that sit underneath everything and burn it up. They're so hot that nothing can even be near them without combusting.

Huxley's neck itches. That little concavity just to the right of his Adam's apple. Absently, he scratches it. “Then I'll keep going east,” he says.

Neither man speaks for the rest of the evening.