The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (11 page)

“Young?”

“Yeah, real young. From what Neil says it's just a kid one.”

Graham's eyes become smaller and filled with pictures. Something about Child's age has him curious, and I'm not sure why, and I don't want to know why, but I know I can use it.

“I can help you.” They turn to me, surprised. “I can help you catch her.”

Graham comes over to the bed and hangs his face in mine.

“Don't try to trick me. I know you care about this other one or you wouldn't have done what you did to Tom.”

“I was protecting her before, but now I'm protecting me. I care more about me than I care about her.”

That's what life is for Real People. Giving them what their ears want.

He looks at the other man. Then at me. “There's something I'd like to show you. After that, tell me if you still feel like helping.”

**

Down the long hallway, Graham's hand on my Arm, a hot wave spreads over me. My Eyes boil like cans on the Trailer stove as we walk past door after door, some of them quiet, some with sound in them like the Voice of the Outside when it speaks into a Cavern then turns around and speaks out. After three doors I understand it's Real People behind them, listening to us pass. I've never heard breathing this loud, but I know it's not the breathing that's changed.

Every foot sound means we're deeper inside the Mountain. The feel of it rings inside my Head as Graham tells me things he doesn't have to about what we see. He calls the door that's loud with sweat and echoes The Gymnasium. The one that smells like Supplies, The Cafeteria.

“The base came with ten years worth of food,” he says, “twenty of ammo.”

It's hard to listen with my Stomach angry. I've seen Beasts caught in the cages left over from the Real Times that move like it moves now in my Body, small and hard with the fear. I don't know what any of what Graham says means, but I know when we cross a hallway, and I look all the way down and see how many doors are there, it smells like Real People. A lot of them.

I hear them, too.

“Someone has to stop him. He's finally gone completely out of his head.”

“Terence never would've let this happen.”

“We'll all be, you understand me, we'll all be killed!”

At the end of the hallway is a serious door where he slides something thin and plastic from his pocket that makes the door light up and disappear into the wall. Then we step into the room and see it born around us. First machine desks show, buttons and Vision Screens blinking in rows to the far wall. Then the birth continues up the walls with big screens that curve all around but only show white pictures, like bad winter Sky.

“What is this,” I ask a machine desk.

“Human failure.”

I turn to see this new voice and find a woman with hair like leaves before they get the Death, when they still shout bright in the cool Air. Her eyes have creases as she points with a dry finger.

“Those monitors used to display anything you could think of. Images from thousands of cameras and satellites around the world. One can only assume what happened to those.”

Graham's chest fills with Air and his arms go across it. “What are you doing here?”

She puts her hands on her hips and smiles.

“The others asked you to come here,” he says.

“Can you blame them? You're putting them in danger. They know I'm the only one who will stand up to you.”

“As long as you're standing up, you might be more comfortable stretching those legs on the other side of the blast doors.”

“Is that a threat?”

“That's exactly what it is, Rachel. We both know I have the power to do it, so until I fail those people you need to keep your mouth shut and let me do what I have to do.”

“He hasn't failed yet,” I say.

“Graham forgets the condition this place was in when we found it. It's been a few years, I think his memory has gone rusty.”

“I remember just fine.”

“Then I'll tell her, and you can listen.”

“It's not a her, it's an it.”

She turns away from him, her face warm and cold at the same time, serious but soft. It's so much like my mother it's hard to look.

“Before we came here, our group was twice the size it is now. With all the traveling we did in those days we lost a lot of them.” She looks over my Shoulder but there's nothing there. “It would have been safer to stay put, live in one place, but with a group that big we couldn't find one that fit us all that wasn't a cesspool of disease. We were stubborn, and we paid for it in lives.”

“Get to the point,” Graham says.

“Finding this place was a godsend, as you can imagine, and when we found the front door unlocked...well, to say we felt smiled down on wouldn't be stretching the truth. Not even a little. But the moment we opened that second door and stepped inside, that fuzzy feeling faded real quick. See the first of us in tripped over a dead monster, and not just dead but shriveled up. As we explored the base we found more bodies, and more bodies, not just monsters but people, too, people who'd been beaten to death and eaten. We found the infirmary wide open and littered with dead doctors, along with signs they'd been treating someone for the virus.”

Her hands come down. Her chin shakes.

“And now here's the kicker- we found monsters who'd been eaten, too, eaten by other monsters, and one who'd been eaten by a woman who got herself locked in with it. She fed on it's dead body to stay alive, but the virus got to her and she turned. Then she starved, too.

“We'd stumbled across a ghost ship. It took a bit of work to clean it up and make it livable, but from what we can tell it only took one infection to set off the chain. Just one infection, and one-by-one every soldier and officer here was either eaten or changed. Then when the people ran out, those things started eating each other. The last one alive was the first one we found, the one who died trying to claw its way through the front door. Sometime after that the fail-safes engaged. The doors unlocked, and we came along.” She's looking at Graham now. “It only takes one leak to bring a ship down. One leak to sink it.” Her voice is sad, the way that says she knows the Death.

“I used to do that,” I say, stopping the silence between them.

“Do what?”

“Call them 'things'. That changes.”

“Well today's not my day for that, honey.”

I sniff the Air. “Maybe tomorrow.”

She squints at me as Graham puts his hand on her arm and takes her away, saying he needs to talk. The snow on the screen is like a dream, a picture I can't touch with my Fingernails. I move so close it fills up my Eyes, until I can't see anything else.

Whispering voices behind me. They think I can't hear them. I can smell the way their skin changes when they get close to each other. I never knew hate has a smell, but it does. It's sweet, and I like it.

“I know how much you liked Terence,” Graham says.

“What are you talking about?”

“It wasn't easy for you to stand up against him when everything came down, and I appreciate your loyalty.”

“Get something straight, Graham, I never stood against Terence, I just knew I couldn't stand with him anymore.

“Fine. You can tell the others I have this under control.”

“You think you do, and there's a big, damn difference. Only small minds think they can control things. It's because of small minds that the world fell apart in the first place, and I refuse to let what's left of it be ruined.”

“I'm the leadership here, not you. The rules-”

“The rules say it killed Tom so you kill it. What are you waiting for? Get on with it. Kill it, but do it outside.”

“You really don't think I have a plan, do you? Did the others tell you there's another monster running around outside?”

“I heard you've been unable to find it.”

“It's a female. A young one.”

She's quiet. “You really think you can catch it?”

He speaks lower. “Not without this one's help. If I can gain its trust I can use it to lure the younger one in. I was making progress until you came in.”

“Well the others didn't know that, and neither did I. You could tell us these things, you know, fill us in on what you're planning.”

“And I do. When there's time.”

“Okay. But after you catch the young one, you kill this one.”

“It killed Tom, didn't it?”

“That's right. It killed Tom.”

**

The thin plastic from his pocket goes into the wall beneath one of the screens, in a place where it doesn't look like it goes. But it must, because a part of the wall the size of my Hand opens to show a tiny, round hole, and Graham pushes a strange, metal pin in. When he takes it out, a bigger piece of the wall moves out of the way to show a passage. It's tall enough to walk into, but I don't want to.

“Move.” Graham pushes me into the tight space where breathing is faster and my Hands find the walls. Soon we're at another door, the most hidden door I've seen.

“I stood in that control room every day for years, yet I only found this door a few months ago. It was a hiding spot for the senior officer in case the base was attacked. It's sound-proof, water-proof. It even has its own air. The monsters never got in, ironic considering what we use it for now.”

He uses the metal pin again and puts it back in his pocket. The door opens, and the first thing that comes out is the smell. The room is complete dark but I know there's a Munie inside, male, not big and not healthy. It's been in the dark a long time, and so has the rotten meat at his feet. He has a lonely, dangerous feel to him, a weak fear that can change quickly.

Graham turns on the Light and shows him to me. The chain around his ankle goes loud when he scurries.

“Still trying to run.” Graham kicks meat across the filthy floor at him. The Munie hisses from the corner and it makes Graham smile.

I take my Eyes from the Munie. “What is this?”

“Your favorite question. This is our tracker, we use it to find food. What I told you before was true, the base came with ten years of food, but for half the amount of people. We're almost out, and we've been forced to scavenge for what we need in the city and the towns close by. It's been getting harder lately, which is where the tracker comes in.”

The Munie snaps his teeth at Graham. He stares at me with a kind of hunger and opens his stinking mouth at me to croak one word again and again: want.

“Why did you show me this?”

You know why.

“I thought that would have been obvious to someone who survived as long as you did, but the virus is taking over your mind. You've learned a few things about the monsters by now, no?”

I nod. In the ceiling there's a handle with words around it.

“From what you've seen, which are the better hunters, males or females?”

“Female.”

“Good. And tell me, what's even better than a female? What has the best senses of all the dirty, little monsters?”

The young ones.

“I can already see you figuring this out. Believe me, we've tried capturing a young one ourselves and we couldn't. They're slippery when they're small. They can see and smell farther and their minds are sharper. We need that young one. So here's my offer: help me, and you can go free. I can tell you don't like me, but I'm a man of my word.”

Ten minutes ago he promised the Rachel woman he'd kill you. Now he promises you he won't. Whatever happens, he isn't a man of his word.

“Yes,” I say, “I'll help.”

**

Cruz sits in the glass room. He stands when he sees us, watches Graham open a locker to take out a Suit.

“What's up, jefe'? Trial's over?”

“There won't be any trial.”

His eyebrows drop. “Tom's dead, what do you mean there ain't gonna be a trial?”

“This one's helping us get the other, which is more valuable to us than revenge.” He steps into the Suit and pulls it up around him.

“Are you serious? You're gonna let Tom's killer walk outta here cuz you need its help?”

“If I have to.”

When my Back is to them I hear Graham drag the side of his hand across his neck. It's a picture I know, a signal from one Real Person to another when they mean to talk about giving the Death without saying it. The sound of his hand is rough on the hairs under his jaw and from the way the Air moves.

I can see a man without seeing him. This is how serious the Change is.

Cruz says, “You want company?”

“I have to do this alone for it to work. Besides, your size fifteens will scare it off in ten seconds flat.”

“Oh c'mon, the ladies like big feet.”

“This is no lady.”

Graham puts the Mask on as the Second Door opens. I hope not to see the same room but that's what's there, the room between the two doors with the Water in the walls and the grate in the Floor for taking it back. The Suit zips and the door shuts behind us and my Heart shuts, too, in my Chest. The room seals with a boom and then a fsst like breath and with a click the red light is back.