Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (9 page)

There was a low and penetrating rumble of thunder, like the bellowing of an ancient and evil force, as I descended with the steaks to set on the workbench. Zeke was there, holding Dinah up by the scruff of her neck and close to its face. She hung there, mouth open, but silent and motionless.

“I don’t think she likes that, Zeke.”

It looked over as I spoke, and then knelt to place the cat on the floor. She bolted down the hall with an amazing, but clumsy, speed as I heard her smack into a wall on the other end.

Alice was either not awake, or simply hadn’t been in the mood to see me just yet. I tried not to think on it too much as I wrapped a steak up for myself, tossed it into my satchel, and pulled open the door to our electric cooler. There I retrieved an aluminum canteen, dropping that into the bag as well.

Zeke observed me tentatively, but there seemed to be a degree of anxiety beginning to brew within the robot, like there was a place it needed to be—some pressing appointment just recalled. Zeke was beginning to make me uneasy. It engaged, it studied, it interacted, but it seemed to be on edge—not walking so much as pacing, reminding me of a time at the zoo as a child, watching a cougar roaming the confinement of its caged habitat.

The animal had obviously been agitated, treading back and forth with a dripping obsession. I had wondered what it was thinking at the time—had wondered if it would gobble me up if it had the chance.

And there in the cavern ... some similar questions were returning.

“Zeke,” I called out, “did you find out where that kid went last night?”

The robot nodded and scattered a glowing assortment of buildings onto the workbench. It suddenly appeared as though I’d spent the past ten years constructing a detailed miniature section of the city out of glass. Upon further inspection, I found myself looking at a badly beaten and weathered apartment complex. I could even see a few people walking the surrounding premises and roaming the streets beside it.

Zeke then zoomed in another unknown percentage, focusing on a set of double doors on the east side. I guessed it would lead to a corridor lined with rooms.

I wrote the cross streets down onto a sheet of notebook paper and shoved it into my pocket.

“Thanks, Zeke. Just tell Alice I went out for a few hours, okay?”

The robot shook its head and planted a foot firmly in front of me. “I am no bodyguard,” it hissed, “and I am not your pet either. I can help you.”

I put my palms up, motioning for the robot to calm down. “Help me with what? Just tell Alice I went to see an old friend.” I pointed to the hallway and toward the woman I’d assumed was still sleeping. “Alice is the one thing you’ll ever have to trouble yourself with. She’s by far the most important thing left on this Earth and I need you to protect her, Zeke. At all cost, I need you to protect her.”

The robot didn’t budge. It looked at me for a moment before coming to stand directly in front of me, craning its neck to exaggerate the fact that it was slightly taller, as I tried to mask how intimidating the thing really was. It could have snapped me in two just as easily as popping open a jar of peanut butter. I still had the bruises to prove it.

“I was not programmed for subservience,” it warned.

“Neither was I, and I know you have the ability to leave whenever you want, which is why I’m asking you— nicely—to please stay here and protect Alice.”

I pointed up the stairway and out into the world. “Whatever it is you think is out there, whatever it is that you’re getting worked up about, there is no mission more important than the one in this cavern.

“And your body ... ” I flicked it hard in the chest and sent a sharp “ting” through the surrounding stillness. “She built you this magnificent thing out of nothing but scrap, and she did it all because I asked—nothing else in return. She’s the reason why you’re here, Zeke.” I dropped my head and spoke the last bit more to myself than to anyone: “And she’s the reason why I’m still here.”

After what seemed like an eternity of it sifting through internal conflicts, the thing, with marked reluctance, finally stood aside and allowed me to pass. I thanked it, walked through the open doorway, flipped a switch to open that flattened metal door above, and shot out on my Kawasaki.

I
t had been awhile since I’d seen the city during the day. The colors looked much different beneath the morning’s stormy gloom, but still just as bleak—just as bland and lifeless. A thin layer of dust seemed to shroud each building, each street, and each sidewalk; as if the smog had collapsed atop street lamps, fire escapes, storefronts, and donut shops, like a set of filthy sheets cast aside by a previously sleeping giant.

Compressions were visible in the fine debris, tapping out neatly perforated patterns through the flattened terrain. They were recent footprints, perhaps just a day or two old, which signified yet another reason not to get too comfortable.

I pulled into a small parking lot and killed my bike behind a tiny diner at 5th and Main. It was closer to the outer rim of the city and lay just a bit outside the government’s usual stomping ground. The diner had been a cozy little joint back in the day, making the best and fluffiest banana-nut pancakes I’d ever tasted.

There was a time when one could smell them from there in the parking lot, along with the aroma of sizzling eggs and crisp bacon. And, much like the whiskey-spun tales of an ancient Leviathan, this trio had once possessed the ability to rip a man from the warmth of his sheets.

This diner had once brought in an entire army of salivating customers each and every weekend. I, too, had been known to answer the call of a hot morning meal, along with the promise of freshly brewed Columbian coffee.

The place was called Dingy Pete’s Café, and although the name had once been just a clever piece of cute and innocent commercialism, it was now exactly as it had suggested all those years ago—like someone’s twisted idea of foreshadowing.

The paint had been chipping away over the past decade or so, and despite the few parts that still maintained the weathered remnants of its former pearly white exterior, the rest had peeled to a much less desirable olive green. The sign itself, still intact atop the building’s front, had faded from a fire-truck red to a much duller terra-cotta. Shrouds of dark linen were draped over the windows from the inside. There was nothing friendly about it anymore. Whatever vibrant energy it had once possessed had long since passed, survived only by this hollowed and deeply saddening shell.

I rounded the diner and approached the front door, which was eerily unlocked and unguarded. There was no one in the streets beyond and the sidewalks were completely vacant. I pulled out my pistol and slowly pushed the door inward—only to discover that I’d been incredibly foolish.

As the edge of the door began to travel, it collided with a small brass bell hanging from the ceiling. The impact set the bell in motion as it swayed and clattered softly above my head, a pleasant and gentle noise, but right then it might as well have been an industrial alarm.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice called out. “I swear if it’s you punks again, I’m gonna rap you upside your skulls!”

I lowered my weapon as the woman poked her head out from behind the silver door that led into the kitchen past the bar. I offered her a polite smile. “Can I come in?”

The woman squinted at me. “Miles, is that you?”

“Yes, Ma’am, it’s me,” I said, shaking the water off my clothes. She came out and sent the door swinging behind her, walking with her arms outstretched before grabbing my shoulders and pulling me down for a long hug.

“How have you been, Ms. Voya?” I asked, shortly after she released me.

“Ms. Voya?” the woman huffed. “Call me Claire, Miles. I’m not a schoolteacher.”

I smiled and pointed back at the front door. “Do you want me to lock this for you, Claire? It’s a dangerous world out there, ya know.”

“Oh, please.” She waved her hand at it. “There’s nothing out there I can’t handle. Besides, if I lock it, it’ll only invite them in further. They think I’m a witch, anyway. The Witch of Dingy Pete’s, or the Dingy Witch ... I forget what they’re calling me nowadays.”

“Well, you look good, Claire. Not like a witch I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh stop, Miles. You don’t want me to blush, do you?”

“Nope, wouldn’t want that.”

“Most certainly not, but you’re not looking half bad yourself there, Miles. The end of the world treating you well?”

“As well as can be expected.” We chuckled politely back and forth.

“So what brings you back here, or do I really have to ask?”

“I think you already know the answer to that, Claire.”

She studied me for a bit longer as I returned the gaze. Claire was an older woman, ten or so years my senior, and her dark hair was pulled back and glistening with more grey than in times past.

Her face was narrow at the jawline but reached up to form a set of plump and rosy cheeks, her eyes nestled comfortably atop them. They were somewhere between a shade of blue and aqua—I cannot say for sure.

Claire was definitely attractive for her age, but looked as though she’d been concealing her European curvature beneath a pair of jeans and baggy sweatshirts for too long. Nevertheless, it was still blatantly obvious that she’d once possessed a body to rival that of a mid-twenties yoga instructor.

“Very well,” she said finally, “follow me.” Claire took my hand and led me through a soft curtain comprised of— what seemed like—bed sheets, and into the larger dining area. “It’s been quite awhile since your last visit, Miles. And you don’t seem to be the same man I watched leave here ... what? How long has it been now?”

“Eight years,” I answered.

“Eight years! There’s a new strength about you, a new kind of freedom. Do you feel it?”

“I’m at a different place in my life now, yes.”

“No.” Claire shook her head as she motioned for me to take a seat at a small two-top table. “The air, Miles, the air is much less dense than the last time you walked in here.”

I lowered myself into the chair opposite hers. “The air feels the same to me.”

“No, you brought a cloud in here with you before—a choking fog. It was horrible.” She brought her hands up to her throat.

“I don’t know what to say besides, time. They say time heals all wounds.”

“Yes, but you haven’t healed, Miles. No one heals from the loss that you endured. We cope and we bury, but we don’t heal, at least not all the way.”

I nodded, supposing she was right. This was why I’d come after all, to redress the wounds I’d been hiding under my armor—the deep gash within my chainmail.

“You still have every ounce of that fog within you,” she continued. “You’ve simply learned to bottle it and hide it well—very well indeed.”

“I’m ready to let go a bit more. They deserve that.”

“So what happened exactly? Why come back now?”

“I ran into a kid yesterday who reminded me just how distant I’ve been, that’s all.”

“Interesting,” she said. “And your meeting him was no mistake, I’m sure.”

“Maybe not, but before we get started I have something for you.” I reached into my tan shoulder bag and revealed the aluminum canteen—to which she immediately shook her head.

“I’ve been sober now for quite some time, Miles, but I appreciate the gesture. Besides, you really don’t want to see me get all liquored up. I might not let you leave,” she laughed.

I spun the cap off its end as it dropped to the side with a “clank” and held it out to her. “All you have to do is smell it, Claire. Then I’ll have to pry it out of your hands, I promise.”

“That good, huh?”

All I did was smile. She lowered her nose over the opening and inhaled. Claire’s reaction was instantaneous. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as her eyes widened.

“Is that ... ”

“Taste it,” I urged her. She grinned after taking it from me and pressed the canteen to her lips, lifting its end until it was at a forty-five degree angle. I watched the lids of her eyes drop slowly as her expression changed to one of complete ecstasy. The bones in her body became suddenly rubbery, causing her to slump a bit in her chair, as the esteemed Dingy Witch seemed to be on the verge of melting. She’d luckily managed to pull the drink away before becoming just a steaming pile of frumpy attire, and shared her enthusiasm with the smacking of lips and an emphatic humming. “Where on Earth did you get this?”

I shook my head at her, “Shame on you, Claire. If I told everyone my secrets, then they would cease to be valuable, wouldn’t they?”

I dodged her question quite purposefully. If I’d told her the truth—that I’d been hiding a biologically engineered being in a man-made cave, a being that continued to make me wondrous and unbelievable trinkets of modern technology, and out of some simple herbs I’d gotten from Mohammad, had even managed to conjure me up this post-apocalyptic form of root beer—she would surely think I’d gone off the deep end. Luckily the woman didn’t push me for any further explanation.

“Ah. Handsome
and
mysterious,” she teased. “So I guess I won’t ask how you’ve managed to keep it so cold.”

“Smart lady.”

Claire chuckled a bit, but soon fell deep in thought. “Do you remember when we could just ask for this stuff? And they would bring it to us in big glasses clinking with ice? And, when we were done, they’d bring us another, and another, and another?”

“I remember.”

“People used to drink it every day here.” She looked around the large sitting area we occupied, focusing on certain points, as if she could still see the lingering spirits of old patrons, busily sipping from generous mugs and thumbing through their morning newspapers. “I can still hear them from time to time—the cracking of an egg in the kitchen and the scraping of silverware on a plate.”

“Ghosts?” I asked.

She shrugged, “Or just memories echoing around this place, bouncing off walls, just waiting to be discovered again.”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d meant by that. I’d never believed much in mystic superstitions before, and as we took our seats at the end of the table, I can’t really say I was much of a believer then either. Sure I’d been there a few times in the past; it had proved to be a great emotional outlet.