The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (15 page)

“I didn't know it was my last Day when we left here,” I tell her. “Then the Change came, and it came so quick I couldn't come back. One time I tried to but I couldn't make it. I really tried but there was too much danger in the low part of the Mountain.”

Her big eyes look up at me.

“It's okay. I'm okay.” I realize I'm touching her face and pull my Hand away.

“Hear metal,” she says.

“You did? From where?”

A voice across the room says, “I think I can answer that.”

Graham is in the front door, aiming a gun at us. His face is serious under his mask. “I would say it's the metal wrapped around my Humvee, but if I had a second guess...” He pulls a chain and brings something else into the room- the tracker Munie, thin and dirty with the chain around his neck and a kind of cage on his mouth to keep his bite in. His hands have thick gloves with silvery tape wrapped around the wrists to hold them on. He drags his muddy legs over my mother's floor and makes a sound like laughing, or choking.

Graham says, “I think he's excited, but you would know better than me at this point. I promised it a reward if it did a good job tracking you down.”

“Good-good-good-good-good,” the Munie croaks.

“You can smell them, can't you? The pheromones? You can do all kinds of things now. The virus is working quicker on you than I thought, which is why I underestimated you. You were even clever enough to cut through the sewers to throw off the scent trail. Nice moves, but in the end they were useless.”

“It took you a long time to track us.”

He pushes his teeth together. “I was...delayed. Some people don't approve of how I do things, but part of being a leader is encouraging healthy debate.”

“You don't believe your own words. I don't believe them, either.”

“It's hurtful that you think I've done anything but tell the truth. Why would you say I'm lying?”

“I know your Munie's wants, but I know yours, too. To get what you want you would say anything.”

Graham laughs. “It's too bad I only have room to keep one of you. I enjoy the way your mind works, even if it is rotting out from under you. You're right, it wasn't a debate, it was a trial. My own people put me on trial. And you know what? I hated it. I hate every second I waste explaining myself.”

He pulls the chain to make the tracker Munie still his moves. Then he pushes his mask close and speaks into its face cage.

“Will you promise not to eat me?” The Munie keeps his eyes on me, never looks away even with Graham so close. “Once they catch a scent they don't see anything else. You have to admire that level of stubbornness. It's unfortunate that such a good trait is wasted on such a disgusting creature.” He unties the chain and removes the face cage. “Now if you don't mind, a trade.”

The Munie makes the choking sound again as it moves closer. I put my Body lower and move between him and Child, telling her to stay behind me. Graham moves the part of the gun that makes it ready to fire.

“I thought you understood. The only way the young one lives is by coming with me, any other way ends with it dead. Give it to me, and at least I can give it a safe place to live. It'll have its own room and it'll be fed and protected. Can you give it that same guarantee out here?”

“I've seen your room.”

“Inside a very safe mountain, if you remember. Tell me you can honestly say that either of you will be alive a year from now.”

I shake my head.

“If you really cared you would give it over to me and let me leave. I could just kill you and take it, of course, but we both know it'll fight me, and I'll end up shooting it. That's why I need you to make it listen.”

Child shakes her head at me. I can't stand the picture of her in Graham's room, with the rotten Supplies around her, but she might not survive at all outside of it.

I can stand that picture even less. So I nod.

“Good. What's left of your mind had made the right choice. Now tell it to come here.” He points at the floor next to his foot. I tell her, but she shouts and hides behind the couch, digging her nails in.

“He's right,” I tell her, “I can't make you safe, not like he can.”

“No want.”

“Yes you do, you want to pass this day and the day after. With me is only the Death.” I move closer to her. “I hurt your foot, didn't I? I put you in the cold Water and dropped you from the window? I got you hunted by Real People, and Beast after Beast, and I couldn't stop any of it.”

“Can stop.”

“I can't, Child. I can't. But he can.”

She looks at Graham, then back to me. Her nails soften on the couch.

“Go with him. I promise I'll be safe.”

After a few seconds she moves to him, slowly, stopping some feet away. He goes to her and grabs her arm too strong, and I lunge.

“No, no, no, you took the deal. It's my property now, to handle as I want. The same goes for your new boyfriend.” Graham whistles at the tracker Munie. He tears the gloves off with his teeth and moves toward me. Spit falls from his mouth.

Graham says, “See that? They can be house-trained.”

The Munie crawls to me and I want to run, to fight, but for Child I still my Body and let him sniff me with his eyes wide and his mouth full of rot. And his smell, so much want and sick, so many broken pictures in those wide eyes and laughing tongue. Who knows how many Days he's passed in that dirty room, how many Nights he's been kicked and pushed to hunt for Supplies he can't have. I feel sad for him, but I feel more sad for Child because this is what life is for her now.

This is the final thing I've done to her.

The Munie moves in to lick my Cheek, but an explosion sounds through the house. Right in front of me the Munie's face opens and goes to Blood and his body falls away into the Death.

I don't understand what's happened. But then, across the room, I see the back door is open, and in it a man in a mask with dark hair and dark skin like Graham, and he has a gun in his hand that breathes smoke.

Graham aims his gun. When he sees the man, his face changes to a way I haven't seen it.

“Terence?”

The man steps into the room. “Hello, brother. It's been a while.”

**

Terence has passed more years than Graham, harder years. The skin under his eyes is soft and fallen in, and a beard has taken his face the way Moss takes the Trees when the Clouds come and the Rain doesn't stop for months.

“Look at you, Graham, still sticking your thumb in every pie that comes your way. When do you plan on growing up, when you're dead?”

“This isn't your business.”

“I'm not sure what sort of evil you're getting up to in here, but you need to get your ass on that truck you rode in on and ride the hell back out. And I would do it before the others get here.”

Graham moves around the room in long, slow steps, leaving Child crouched near the door looking at me for what to do. Without words I tell her to be quiet, still herself until I can figure something out.

“So this is where the misfits ended up? You've been in town this whole time?”

“There's nothing misfit about us. We were betrayed.”

“I always pictured you far off, maybe someplace cold like you never shut up about. If I'd known you were less than fifty miles away this whole time? Shit, I might have made this trip months ago to finish the job.”

Terence lowers the gun. “I'm so sorry I let you become this. If Mama could see the man you are now, it would kill her.”

“She's dead anyway.”

“I remember who was responsible for that.”

“I didn't see
you
going back for her. Your failed leadership let Mama down, not mine.” He pushes his finger to Terence's chest. “You, brother. You're the one who killed her.”

Terence hits Graham. They grab each other and start to struggle, and with their eyes no longer on us I crawl over the Munie's body and go to Child, grab her arm and take her to the door.

Outside the Sky is between Day and Night, a time when Real People and Munies have always mixed. A time when the Death runs through the World the most, because Real People and Munies don't go together, not without Blood and Death and screaming.

The two men fight through the living room, impact the wall and fall over the table with shouts. Their guns are on the floor but they don't notice them, don't look at them because their anger is past guns. They want to tear each other apart from the years they've given each other. I know Graham is bad and cruel, but I don't feel this from Terence.

The outside Air is on my face, the house Air on my back.

“Need go,” Child pleads. “People danger.”

“I think he needs our help.”

She looks back at them rolling on the floor. Graham gets on top of Terence, pulls the man's mask off and impacts Terence's face with his fist. Then again. Terence tries to stop it but Graham does it again.

Child looks back up at me. After a second, she nods. It surprises me to see her do this, to care about a Real Person, but Child surprises me a lot.

I take Graham's gun from under the table and aim it at his face. Child goes behind him, grabs him around the neck and squeezes her nails into his throat, stopping his moves.

Graham breathes white eyes. “What the hell do you want? Just put your tail between your legs and hide in the corner, I'll deal with you when I'm done.”

I tell Terence to get up. He pushes from under Graham. “What are you thinking of doing,” he asks, Blood falling from his nose.

I aim the gun at their raised hands. “Giving the Death to him.”

“I can't let you do that. I'm thankful for the help, believe me, but if you shoot him you and I are back to zero. Lower than zero, in fact.”

My fingers go tight on the gun.

“If you fire that we'll have a hundred monsters on us in less than two minutes, and I promise you we can't defend ourselves here. Graham's not worth that. Not to you, anyway.”

“He's a bad person. He tried to give Child the Death.”

“He's a sick bastard, I'll give you that, but he's also my family. If anyone's going to kill him it's me.”

“I'm touched.” Graham spits Blood on the floor.

“Please just let him go. I'll deal with him another time, you have my word on that.”

I watch Terence's face. When Graham makes promises I don't believe them, but this one is different. I bring myself closer to Graham and tell him to go.

“They told me not to come back empty-handed, what do you expect me to do?”

I push the gun into his forehead. “Put your tail between your legs.”

Anger fills up his eyes. “You're nothing but a bitch monster. You don't get to talk to me like that.”

Terence says, “Obviously, she does.”

Graham leaves, looking at both of us as he walks through the front door and into the Night. He glances back at Child and she hisses at him.

Terence puts his mask back on, then he takes his gun from the broken things on the floor. Something small and metal shines on the living room floor. The strange pin, the one that opens the tracker Munie's room at the base. It fell from Graham's pocket during the struggle, but he didn't notice. The tracker Munie is on the floor with no head, so he doesn't need a room.

I take the pin.

“Thanks for your help. I have to get back to the group before they think something's happened to me.”

I nod. Child comes to my side and he watches us.

“How long have you been infected with the virus?”

“Two days.” I don't believe the words that come from my mouth. Only two days.

“You're holding up well, most people can barely talk by the second day. You must have a strong system.”

“I sleep in the Day and hide from the Sun.”

“That helps, but still, seems like more than that. What are you doing with her?”

I show Terence her foot and explain how I gave it to her, how the Munies look at the weak as Supplies, so I have to find a safe place for her before the Change takes me complete.

Terence is quiet. Then he nods. “I can't promise what the others will say, but there might be a place for you where we're staying. If you don't mind wearing masks I can bring you there. You saved my life, I owe you that chance.”

I look down at Child. She puts her hand in my hand. I tell him, I don't mind wearing masks.

IV

The town is green through the Night Eyes, and quiet as anything after the Death finds it.

“Don't be fooled, it seems peaceful now but half these houses have monsters sleeping in them. All it takes is to knock over one trash can to see.” Terence adjusts his mask in the moonlight as he looks over at us. “I probably shouldn't use that word around you two. It's just the one I've always used, and old habits die hard. ” He holds up his bare hand, showing the dark skin. “I know how weak that excuse is.”