A Crack in the Sky (32 page)

It had been days since she’d seen a human being. As far as she could tell, she was the only traveler out here now.

According to the signs, she was somewhere in Connecticut, just beyond the ruins of a city called Bridgeport. Every mile she covered looked more or less the same. Disintegrating pavement. Barren fields of mud and rubble. Dead trees like corpses. Now and then she came across the ruins of a former city or town, some deserted business center with crumbling bridges and empty, dilapidated buildings. And since the rain began, everything was flooded.

Worst of all was the hunger. In all her life she’d never known it like this. On the first day, before the rain began, there had at least been the insects that swarmed in thick clouds through the air. But the rain had made bugs difficult to find, and now she was ravenous. Every once in a while she came across the remains of dead things, mostly animals her own size or smaller, their bones picked dry. But even if she’d had the stomach for such things, there was never any meat left on them.

After four days of running, hunger burned inside her like a fever. The ache in her belly consumed her thoughts and never left her alone. She was feeling weaker by the hour.

Toward the end of that afternoon she stopped to catch her breath. Resting behind a large rock at the crest of a hill, she
could see for miles across the desolate landscape, even through the rain. A sea of empty land vehicles. An overturned bus, its rusting hulk half-submerged in water. The highway ran like a river, and, as warm as the air was, above her the looming sky was gray and cold. She closed her eyes.

I know you’re still out there, my darling. Hold on. I’m coming for you
.

She could still feel Eli’s signal, but he made no response.

Marilyn had already had one close call with wild dogs. It had been before the rain, on her very first evening out of the dome. Any genuine animal of the wild would have sensed something approaching, Marilyn was sure, but her attention was elsewhere. She was standing in the middle of a clearing in the woods and was looking straight up at the gathering clouds, which were lined in pink and red as the hazy daylight faded. The colors were softer out here and yet at the same time more intense. She was mesmerized by the idea that these were real clouds, actual formations of crystallized water droplets that had collected up in the atmosphere and reflected natural light from the sun. There was no programming involved. Nobody had encoded them with drift logic or advertising.

These clouds simply
were
.

Watching the real sky, so vast and uncorrupted, made her feel for the first time a part of Nature, an unspoiled creation of an immense system of randomness. Yet the colors were so beautiful, they made her wonder if this system could be so random after all. Maybe there really was a Leonardo up there
somewhere, overseeing things. In the unknowable scheme of the universe, wasn’t it possible that someone or something might have planned all this? The clouds, the sky, even Marilyn herself? Could it be that even a brain-chipped mongoose was here for a purpose?

Looking back, she could almost feel her animal ancestors chirping at her in alarm. There she’d been, exposed in an open field and lost in pointless ruminations—hardly the thoughts of a feral mongoose fit to survive in the wilderness—and the distraction had almost killed her.

Wild dogs sprang from every direction, five of them, scraggly things with rib cages clearly visible on their emaciated bodies. They lunged across the field with their teeth bared, their yellow eyes burning with a look she understood better now. It was hunger. They’d been lured by her scent, the smell of food. They were nearly upon her.

The only reason she survived was luck.

Just as she felt the biggest and fiercest of the dogs snapping at her heels, she happened upon a narrow hole in the ground. She’d passed several of them as she’d walked into the field, and now she darted down into one. In that instant all five dogs reached the top of the hole, growling and tearing at the dirt above her. They barked and howled in frustration, but they couldn’t get to her. Marilyn scratched and flailed her legs through the dirt to move herself forward. She was deep in a tunnel, and now she had time to wonder what creature had dug it and whether it might still be down there, somewhere in the gloom, ready to attack any intruder. But she wasn’t going back. She took her time crawling through the darkness,
uncomfortable in such a tight space. The hole smelled musty and old. Whatever animal used to live in this place, not even its scent remained. Eventually she found another way up and out of the tunnel and ended up in a thicket perhaps forty or fifty yards from where she’d leapt into the hole. By then it was pouring rain. But the dogs were gone.

From then on she’d been more careful. As she traveled, she kept her eye out for escape routes, anything she could climb or dig under or hide inside at a moment’s notice. A concrete wall. A car with a half-open window. Even the water itself could be used as cover.

At night she dreamed of the wild dogs—fearsome, starving creatures with tongues that lolled out of their mouths as they ran at her. She knew they were still out there, packs of skeletons hunting the wasteland.

Every now and then she heard barking in the distance.

Late in the morning she came to a stretch of road so flooded, she was forced to leave the highway. She climbed through a grove of overturned trees and eventually stumbled onto a passable road, this one narrow and winding. She followed it awhile, moving slower and slower as her energy waned.

At a curve in the road she stopped to rest again, wondering how long she could last without finding something to eat. A small, desolate village lay ahead and, just in front of her, a sign that tilted to one side. Most of the paint had been chipped away, but she could see it had once been blue with carved gold letters:

Minutes later she was slinking through the town’s sodden, muddy streets. Collapsed wooden houses, windowless and dripping. More deserted vehicles. A simple white church with a steeple that, incredibly, still stood upright even as the wind whipped garbage across the road. Marilyn moved with caution, alert for anything that might jump out at her. Wild dogs weren’t the only danger. She wondered when she would run into more barbarians like the old man in the sky or the hag that had nearly killed Eli. But she saw nobody. This place was empty, a ghost town.

Up ahead a small clapboard building caught her eye. It had a sign that said HARTSBURG GROCERY. Its exterior was weatherworn and many of the clapboards were missing, but the building itself was still upright, and it still had a door. Her heart beat faster. With energy she didn’t realize she still had, she ran toward it. Maybe her luck had turned. The perishable food would be long gone, of course, but maybe she would find
something
inside. Canned goods, perhaps? Opening a can would present a problem, but, given the chance, she was sure she could figure a way to get to the food. After all, she was desperate.

At the side of the little building she stopped to consider how she was going to get inside. All the windows were broken, but they were too high to reach. After a moment she went back to the street and found a long, dead tree branch. She
dragged it to the side of the store, propped it against the wall, and then climbed to the window. Her pulse was racing. Food, at last! She could almost taste it. She hopped inside and dropped to the floor.

There was nothing. Just bits of twisted metal that might once have been shelving, all broken into pieces and strewn about the room. Somebody had been here first and had already ransacked the place. From the thick layer of dust, it must have been a while ago. The room stank of mildew, and even the wood flooring felt spongy under her paws.

When she turned her head she noticed a faded message spray painted across the entire back wall. The spelling was poor and the letters were misshapen and crude, as if a child had written them:

The skin on her neck prickled, but not because she thought whoever had written it might burst into the room. It was obvious nobody had been here for a long, long time. But still the message itself left her breathless, especially the last part. She wondered if it was true or just a threat. And what had happened to these people, whoever they were? After the food was all used up, where had they gone? And if they and everybody else were dead or dying somewhere, what was the purpose of anything? Why would the great architect of all natural things allow this?

But she couldn’t let herself get distracted with pointless questions. All that mattered now was that she was still weak with hunger and there was nothing here to eat. She was on her own in the middle of the Outside wilderness during a storm, and if she didn’t find food soon, she was going to starve. And Eli still needed her help.

Marilyn dragged herself down the road again, away from the town. The thunder seemed louder and more frequent, and the wind and rain blew hard in her face. After a while she stopped under a low bridge to take a drink and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water. She didn’t recognize herself. She was skinny and haggard, and her fur was matted with mud. She looked like a drowning rat on the brink of death. Suddenly all she wanted to do was collapse. She didn’t want to give up, but she felt so famished and weak. After all, she’d been running for almost five days.

Just beyond the bridge she noticed a long four-story building with open concrete walls, and floors that slanted in alternate directions. She’d seen pictures of buildings like this, old-style parking garages for the road vehicles of years long past. Surely she could find a dry place in there, a safe corner at the top of an incline where she could rest awhile, just until the storm ended. She staggered to it and climbed the first staircase to avoid the rising flood. In the center of the second level she found an elevator car that had long since stopped working. The sliding door was open, though, and despite the darkness, it was dry and comfortable and smelled relatively clean.

This would do nicely, she decided. She could lie here and get some sleep while she dried off. A few hours, that’s all she needed. After that, maybe she would feel better.

She tumbled into a corner of the floor, glad to take the weight off her aching legs. Almost immediately her eyes grew heavy and she felt sleep start to take hold of her.

But that’s when there was a sudden rattling sound.

She opened her eyes.

On the opposite corner of the elevator floor was a rattlesnake. Its body was coiled and its head was upright. It was staring at her, threatening to strike. Like her, it must have stumbled into this dry, comfortable place after it came into the garage seeking shelter from the storm.

She kept still, sure she was about to die.

But then, as she stared into the snake’s murderous eyes, she felt something stir deep in her soul. As terrified as she was, she was overcome by a powerful wave of hate, inexplicable and primal. She realized she
despised
this slithering thing.

She wanted it dead.

After all she’d been through, why should she let it take her life?

All at once she knew what to do. Instead of making an immediate dash for the doorway, she took a half step
toward
the snake, just within striking range, tempting it to come for her. It did. Its head moved like a whip, but she was ready for it. The instant it made to spring at her, Marilyn leapt back through the doorway and out of its range. Despite her hunger she was still agile, and just fast enough to get away with it.

The snake was angry. It slid across the elevator floor, its fangs glistening with venom. But this was what Marilyn wanted. She let it come. She led it into the open space of the garage and saw it clearly for the first time. It was perhaps four
feet long, with a thick, muscular body and a repeating diamond pattern on its brownish scales.

The snake hissed as she danced around it in a wide circle. In spite of her desperation—maybe because of it—she’d found strength she wasn’t aware of. She taunted the confused reptile, stepping just within its reach and backing away the moment it attacked. It shook its rattle in fury, but Marilyn kept doing it over and over again. She was wearing it down, letting it use up its limited energy as she kept moving around it, always circling, circling. Hungry as Marilyn was, she was determined to outlast it.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the rattlesnake was moving noticeably slower. Its head wobbled as it tried to follow Marilyn’s erratic movements, and it took longer to respond when she teased it. Marilyn decided now was the time to make her own attack. She lunged at it with her claws outstretched. Just as she did so, the snake made one last dive at her, and she felt its fangs whip across her shoulder. But her fur was thick, and the venom didn’t penetrate to her skin. Before the viper got a second chance, Marilyn had her jaws clamped around the narrow section of its neck, just under the head. She shook it with all her strength. The snake’s body went suddenly limp.

It was dead! She’d actually killed it!

She dragged the carcass back to the elevator and started ripping hungrily into its flesh. With every delicious mouthful she felt her heart beating faster and her strength returning. She was experiencing the ecstasy of her first blood kill. It was different than she’d imagined it would be. It wasn’t awful or disgusting. It wasn’t even sad. It was noble and logical, the
true nature of the world. She could feel a change coming over her, the dawning realization that she would never be the same again.

For the first time in her life, she felt as if the eyes of all her ancestors were watching with approval.

The next morning the rain stopped. The sky cleared and the sun blazed again. Marilyn was amazed at how quickly the bugs reemerged. By afternoon many of the puddles had all but evaporated.