Interzone 251 (7 page)

I closed my hand around its mechanical paw. “Yeah, so am I, Domino.” I sniffled noisily and started to get to my feet, then sat back down. “I guess we should head back to Ariel,” I said, not moving.

Domino pulled its paw out of my hand and walked over to a low retaining wall near where I was sitting and climbed up onto it. It looked out in the direction that I’d thrown Lucia’s ashes. “There ought to be some meaning,” it said.

“What?”

“Meaning, Neil. There ought to be some meaning, some…sense. If Lucia is just…dead…then…then…”

“Domino?” I got up and took a step toward it. “Domino, I think you need to stop this. Come on, let’s get away from here.”

The little robot stayed where it was, but turned its head toward me. The lens of its left eye caught the setting sun and glittered red. “Neil, I really feel that…that I should be able to understand…I feel that there must be some meaning…to…”

“Domino?” I said again, taking a step toward it. Then I shouted its name; once, twice. I waited, my voice echoing back at me off the walls of the empty buildings. I shouted again, screaming this time, my fists clenched, putting everything I had into it.

But it was no good. There was nothing there. I was alone.

***

In addition to Karl’s previous appearance in
Interzone
(‘The Remembered’ in issue #242), his work has appeared in
Asimov’s
,
Fantasy & Science Fiction
,
Analog
,
The Year’s Best Science Fiction
, and elsewhere. He lives in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, a dog, two cats, and sundry chickens and fish. A website is maintained at 
www.karlbunker.com
.

OLD BONES
GREG KURZAWA

illustrated by Jim Burns

A sudden knocking at the door of his garret shocked Simon out of his chair by the portal window. The chair – older even than Simon – tipped backwards and banged against the warped gray floorboards, cracking two of its brittle slats. That sound, so loud in the empty room, and so soon following the first shock, caused Simon to flinch. The knocking had come without warning – no creak of stair from the landing, no veiled whispers or stifled coughs. Simon had been watching the desolate street beneath his little window all day. From time to time he’d seen mummers moving through the perpetual smog, wrapped tight in drab cloaks, but nothing friendly – never anything friendly. But now here was light – probably from a lantern – showing in the gaps around the frame of his door. What kind of fool ventured out with such light?

Staring at the door, Simon licked dry lips and tried to remember the last time he’d seen another person. How many years? He’d seen countless mummers, but they only
looked
like people.

The knocking came again, gentler this time, as though sensitive to the upset it had already caused.

Simon dared wonder if rescue had come at last.

“Hello,” called a voice from the landing. It was an unremarkable voice – a voice that might have belonged to any kind of person. He’d heard mummers speak with such voices. Such voices were not to be trusted.

It said, “I saw your light.”

Quickly, Simon reached back to snuff the offending flame. It was his habit to leave a candle burning in the window at all times. It helped him find his way back. One candle only. Anything more was sure to attract unwanted attention from undesirable things.

“Hello?” the voice said. “Will you let me in? Will you open the door?”

Moving as quietly as he could, Simon carried his extinguished candle to his pallet of threadbare blankets. He lay on his side facing the door, but did not sleep – or even close his eyes – for a long time.

***

Sometimes while sitting
at his window, Simon plied his memory for details of the life he’d had before the garret. He could not recall how long he’d lived there, when he’d first come, or where he’d been before. His memory had rotted through with age and the sameness of his days under the bruise-colored sun.

What he remembered most clearly was the evacuation. He’d had a family then: parents and siblings, a wife. Children, too, and although he couldn’t remember how many, he did remember that he loved them, and never would have allowed them to endure the suffering that accompanied the collapse of the city. No, those days when the sun suffocated behind a greasy haze and mummers took from them everything they possessed – those were no days for wives and children. Some families had stayed, to their woe. But not Simon’s, no! His family he’d taken out in the evacuation. He’d abandoned everything for their safety. Surely he had.

Then for some reason he’d returned alone. Perhaps to collect something important left behind, perhaps some
one
.

He’d never thought he would lose his way.

Simon scavenged for his basic needs, but never far, and mostly to check his traps for r
ats. They tasted terrible, the rats, but they kept him alive.

Of Simon’s few possessions, he treasured only these: a handful of tarnished coins in an ornate jewelry box; an antique book of equations he couldn’t decipher; and a sepia photograph in a wooden frame – a portrait of a young couple. The fellow had a long face and hooded eyes – a face like a horse; she was dark of hair and light of eye. On the back, someone had written in feminine script – now faded:
To Simon. Our first anniversary. Love, Nora
.

Simon couldn’t recall if the picture was something he’d brought with him to the garret, or something he’d found there. Nor could he precisely remember the woman. Judging by the tight collar of her dress and the dated fashion of the man’s suit, they were of an earlier generation than Simon’s, or else dressed in imitation of one. Despite this, Simon often compared his own weathered face to that of the young man. Though the photograph was faded and scratched, and Simon’s eyesight failing, he found it not impossible that he had once been that young man; and the young woman his bride. This was how he knew – or at least suspected – that his name was Simon.

***

Simon woke to
sickly orange light seeping in through the portal window. It could have been evening as easily as morning. The light on the landing had gone, but even after listening at the door for a long time – and hearing nothing – he was too afraid to open it.

Because plumbing in the city had run dry, it was Simon’s routine to relieve himself in a tin pail, which he emptied in the alley when he ventured out. It wasn’t until the stench of the pail became oppressive that Simon collected it and his rat sack and began to unwind the wire that kept the door shut—

And a knocking from the other side sent him stumbling back. He lost his grip on the pail, slipped in his own filth, and sat heavily.

“Hello?” called the voice. “Will you let me in?”

Furious, Simon kicked at the door. “Go away!” he shouted.

“You lit a candle,” the voice reminded him.

Old bones groaning, joints cracking, Simon regained his feet. He looked down at himself in disgust, stained and reeking. For this, he blamed the voice. “Leave me alone,” Simon said.

“Why would you light a candle if you didn’t want to be found?”

Simon wiped his filthy hands on the wall, adding fresh streaks to others just like them, put there by someone else long before. “I have nothing,” Simon said. “There’s nothing here. No food or water. Nothing of value. Nothing for you to take.”

“I know,” the voice said. “Let me in.”

“I’m just an old man. I’m sick.”

“I can make you well.”

Hearing this, Simon paused. He put his eye to a crack in the door, but the landing was too dark, and he saw nothing but dim shapes. Frustrated, he put his mouth near a crack. “What does that mean?” he asked through the door.

“I’m a surgeon,” came the reply.

Simon looked himself over: crooked, undernourished and unsteady. His body was a canvas of sores, scars and scabs, most of which he couldn’t remember acquiring. A surgeon, with medicine and knowledge… Simon realized then what an ineffective barrier the door made. A determined child could have unhinged it with a kick. Whoever waited on the landing did so only out of propriety. But still…

“Prove you’re not one of
them
,” Simon said.

“How would I do that?”

Simon looked down. He couldn’t say, and that had always been part of the problem.

The door had no handle or latch; Simon kept it closed with two nails with a length of wire strung between them. Fingers twisted with arthritis, Simon unwound the wire, but stopped on the last loop.

“I’m very old,” he said through the door. “I don’t see good anymore, and my bones hurt. When I cough, there’s blood.” Earning no response, he added, “I cough a lot.”

“Open the door,” the voice said wearily.

Sick of his own fear, Simon undid the final loop of wire. Keeping behind the door, he pulled it open just a crack to peer onto the landing.

The surgeon was younger than Simon had imagined, but not too young. Neither was he large, or small. He had plain eyes and a simple face which Simon knew he would forget if he turned his back. He did not seem strong, but by the look of his hands – square and thick-fingered – he was certainly not weak. Weak men did not have such hands.

Given his position, Simon felt it within his rights to stare, and he did so defiantly. The surgeon made no immediate move to enter, and they regarded one another a long moment.

“Well,” said the surgeon.

“Do I know you?” asked Simon.

The surgeon squinted one eye. “I don’t think so. No.”

Frowning, Simon pulled the door open in invitation.

The surgeon stooped to pick up a leather satchel and an unlighted lantern. Stepping over the threshold and around the mess on the floor, he went to the middle of the garret and made a casual appraisal of the sagging ceiling and stained walls. Turning to face Simon, he said, “We can’t stay here.”

Simon remained behind the door. “There are worse places,” he said.

The surgeon nodded, shrugged. “Still,” he said. “We should go.”

“I don’t know you. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The surgeon sighed, as though he’d expected nothing less.

Simon decided he’d seen enough. This was no surgeon. This was a charlatan, and nothing more. He pulled the door as wide as it would go and jerked his head toward the landing.

The surgeon gave him a look of disapproval. “So soon?”

“You can’t help me,” Simon said. He’d been foolish to think so.

“There was a time – you’re old enough to remember – when guests were treated with respect. Guests were offered gifts sometimes.”

“I already told you, I have nothing.”

“No,” the surgeon agreed. But instead of leaving, he set down his bag and lantern, and righted Simon’s chair, fiddling for a moment with the cracked slats before giving up on them. Clasping his hands behind his back, he went to the portal window and bent at the waist to look down at the fog-shrouded street.

“You didn’t evacuate,” the surgeon said. “Why?”

“I did. But I came back.”

The surgeon nodded in disappointment. “Many came back.” Noticing the framed photograph on the sill, he picked it up and straightened to study it. “More than you might think. It was easy to find you at first. There were so many of you. But now—” He shook his head. “You hide so well.”

The surgeon turned from the window, frame still in hand. “You don’t want to stay here, do you? In the city?”

Simon bit back his immediate reply. He would not be tricked. “I survive well enough,” he said.

“Yes,” the surgeon conceded. “On rats. You’re afraid to go outside.” With the frame, he gestured to the landing. “Afraid to open your own door.”

“The mummers—”

“Are everywhere,” the surgeon finished for him. “I know. But you miss your family, don’t you?” He tapped the frame. “You miss—” He turned it to peek at the back. “Nora?”

“Yes.”

The surgeon opened a hand, as though displaying all logic and reason, his case stated and proved. “Then we must leave.”

“You know the way out?”

“Of course.”

“How will we get there?”

“We will walk.”

“I’m too old. I can’t walk that far.”

“It’s not as far as you think. And you forget—” the surgeon hefted his bag “—I’m a surgeon.”

Simon eyed the black bag with suspicion.

“My instruments,” the surgeon explained. “Would you like to see?”

Simon stepped from behind the door. Keeping a safe distance, he watched the surgeon crouch and flip open the latches of his bag. Simon leaned forward, and the surgeon tilted his bag so he could better see.

There were saws with serrated and hooked blades, and various curiously angled clamps. There were pincers, and something like an icepick. The surgeon removed a leather wallet, which he unfolded in three equal parts to display a collection of neatly arranged scalpels. He looked up, and Simon saw a terrible sadness in his eyes, as though these were tools he employed with as much regret as proficiency.

Awed, Simon touched his chest with feeble fingers.

“I can make you better,” the surgeon said, answered the unasked question. “And I will. But you have to come with me.”

Simon nodded.

The surgeon tilted his head to catch Simon’s eye. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The surgeon flipped his wallet of scalpels closed, replaced it, and snapped his bag shut. “But you can’t go like that.” He made a gesture that seemed to indicate all of Simon. “We have to get you clean first, and wash your clothes, too. You have a bath?”

Simon gestured to a curtained doorway at the back of the garret. “But there’s no water,” he said.

The surgeon looked troubled. “No water?”

“Not from the pipes. There’s a ditch behind the building. And I push barrels under the gutters for when it rains.”

“Good,” said the surgeon. “We’ll use your pail to fill the bath.”

“I could wash in the ditch,” Simon said.

After a moment’s thought the surgeon frowned. “No,” he said. “The bath is better.”

So Simon pulled up the thick wool scarf he used to protect himself from the poisoned air outside, then he and the surgeon went down together to fill his pail from the ditch.

Seven trips and the tub was more than half full.

After they had emptied the last pail, the surgeon opened his bag and began to lay out his instruments. Simon watched until the surgeon looked up and gestured at him with a set of forceps. “Your clothes,” he said.

Hindered by a sense of modesty and shame, Simon nodded to the curtain. “Wait out there,” he said.

The surgeon shook his head. “Let me help.”

In the cramped quarters of the closet, Simon allowed the surgeon to aid in prying off his soiled clothing. When he had been stripped completely, and was utterly exposed, he felt like hot bones wrapped in ghastly white sheeting. He covered himself with his hands.