The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (23 page)

Boyd finds the place for us to climb. It's a path leading to the top of the mountain with real people ladders in the steep places. Rust coats the metal and comes off on our skin, turning it brown and red. Kate doesn't like climbing, she says, the height bothers her, the thought of the fall down. Her weak legs shake but Boyd keeps her moving, keeps her talking.

If I'm honest I don't like the heights, either, but at least I don't say it.

After we climb the last ladder and pull to our feet, a strange vision shows to us: the top of the mountain is made of glass, a field of dark squares staring up into the sky. They've turned something mountain into something city as only real people can.

Boyd says, “This is how the base gets its power. They collect sunlight and the semiconductors convert the light into energy.” He adds, “At one point, this was supposed to save the world.”

The sun on my face is warm. I close my eyes and take it in, feeling the strength come back to my arms and legs, feeling my mind focus to a point. It's like my blood is coming to meet my skin, to make it better and heal its wounds. All this time I've spent avoiding the sunlight has been a mistake, I realize. The sun is a friend now. The dark is the enemy.

“I don't think you have to explain solar power to her,” Terence says.

Child has her eyes closed, too, glowing pink in the day. The real people begin to cross the glass ground, so I touch her to get her moving. We follow them side-by-side, enjoying the sun from above and below. The glass is strong and doesn't crack or move beneath us, only reflects and warms, comforts and helps. It's the best I've felt in a very long time.

Then, explosions. Distant sounds of fighting and danger from the front of the mountain. They're loud enough to be heard by all five of us at once, and we know exactly where and what it is.

“It's started,” Kate says, her face a look of worry.

We go to the edge and find ourselves over a line of rock which drops down for half the height of the mountain, ending in piles of rocks before turning back to trees. Looking at it puts my head dizzy with the fear. Terence says we have no choice but to go down, that if we don't we're useless to the others. “We're running behind as it is. If we go down on foot it'll all be over by the time we reach them.” He turns Boyd around and opens the bag on his back to take out striped ropes and small, metal hooks from inside. He looks for a place near the edge to attach them.

“Why don't you stay here,” Boyd asks Kate.

“And do what?”

“How about stay alive. As much as Terence doesn't want to think so, we're walking into a fight down there.”

She touches her hand to his waist. “If I'm here who will look out for you?”

He motions to Child and me. “They have my back.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” she says quietly.

“You don't trust them and they don't trust us, but they're still here, that says a lot about them. And you don't have to worry about me, I can handle myself.”

“I know you can,” she says, “but believe it or not so can I. So the answer is no. I've never left you before and I'm not starting now. We always go together. That's just how it is.”

He smiles, holds her in his arms.

Terence finishes attaching the hooks and tells us everything is set. Wrapping the rope around him, he says we can go down the mountain in pairs but we should be careful, take it slow because we're even less useful to the group in a broken heap on the rocks.

Child looks at me and I look at her. I know what she's thinking, and I agree.

“We're not going that way,” I tell them.

“Why not?”

“We would rather find the death than hang from those ropes. I know Munies as well as anyone knows them, and Munies won't go that high up without a reason.”

“But there is a reason. A good one.”

“We can travel the mountain faster than you can. Without real people slowing us down it won't take us long to reach the bottom.”

Terence hands the other rope to Boyd. “That's up to you. I told you before, you can walk away anytime you want.”

“We're not walking anywhere,” I tell him.

“Then you'd better start running.”

**

Child and I take to the mountain, together, alone, the way we work best. We don't waste strength on words, on speaking with mouths what eyes can say. Instead we use our arms and our legs, feeling the mountain under our feet and pulling ourselves through trees and over rocks, rolling down hills and back up to our feet in time to jump over splits in the earth. Our hearts scream and our lungs give voice to hot breath and sounds with no meaning. I'm aware of slither beasts and things with wings that jump from our foot sounds but I ignore it all, caring only about running, about jumping, about reaching the explosions down below, so that when we reach them, when we find the real people who want to tear each other apart over their metal nest in the rock,we can do what we need to do, what we do best, which I hope, and I don't want my mother to know this, I hope means blood on my teeth.

I've become a hunter, because that's what life is. It's giving the death instead of finding it.

It's becoming the fear instead of having it.

**

We come to where we can see the fence below. The explosions have stopped but smoke breathes from the area, black and gray clouds from the fire weapons of real people. The wood is so quiet not even the winged beasts buzz in the trees. This kind of quiet isn't good, and usually comes from the beasts knowing the death is near.

Child and I listen for signs of the real people. Her chest goes up and down under her chin, her cheeks pink, her tongue tasting the sun, and I find myself amazed at her. She's a thing of beauty, of mind and sense, and if I can give her a chance to live away from danger then at least I've done one thing in my life the way my mother would have done it. Not just hiding behind walls with silvery tape and baths of alcohol.

A familiar scream: fire-birth. They've lit the moat, made it burn, cut the others off from retreating to the base. The fire makes supplies of the gasoline and spreads quickly, hungrily. When we hear voices through the roar, we move again.

We come out of the wood and into the clear to find the two groups facing each other behind masks of all different kinds, some that cover half the face and some all. A few of them wear suits pulled on quickly and badly in the fast moves of the panic. Most hold guns. All have eyes that have seen the death and see it again, and will do anything to not find it in the bright light of fire and day.

I move through the crowd to join Terence at his side. He stops me with his hand and speaks to the crowd while Child stays behind me where I told her to stand.

“Everyone hold your fire. All we want is a chance to talk.”

They're all here, all the real people. Rachel steps out from the others, her bright hair wet, her face serious. “You have the nerve to say that after everything you've done?”

“You infected us,” someone shouts.

“There were monsters in the vents!”

“It was the only way to get you to hear us. I want you to understand that we did everything in our power to avoid hurting anyone. I'm sure Rachel didn't tell you but I tried going to her and speaking rationally.”

Cruz joins Rachel, much taller than her. “You threw dynamite at us, cabron, that ain't avoiding hurt for nobody.”

“The explosives weren't strong,” Doc calls out. “I made them myself, more sound than anything. Terence was very specific about that.”

“It doesn't matter,” Rachel says, “you still brought monsters into our base and threatened our lives.”

“We want you out of here,” Neil adds.

Terence shakes his head. “It's not that simple. Thanks to Graham we have nowhere to stay, and if we spend long looking for a new home, there may be none of us left by the time we find it. Things are different out here. The monsters have been breeding, the towns are full of them, and the cities,” Terence points in that direction, “I don't have to tell you how infested they are. With winter coming, they'll be hungrier.”

“So will we. It's hard enough feeding the mouths we already have.”

“We can help.” Werner speaks over the heads of the group. “I'm the best hunter here. We can stockpile before the weather hits.”

“We don't need none of your help,” Cruz says.

Werner chuckles. “No? What do you use the monsters for, washing dishes? You've had problems running this place since the day you kicked us out, and you don't have to say it. It's written on your faces.”

“If you're done insulting us, it's time you got going,” Rachel says. “If we have to ask again it won't be as nicely.”

Terence tells Werner to drop it. He speaks loud enough for everyone to hear. “I know how you all feel about me and what went down with that trader. We lost family that day, and you still blame me for it. Well, you're right. I was your leader, and it was my job to keep things like that from happening. All I can say is I did what I thought was right, and in the end it wasn't. If I'd have killed that son-of-a-bitch a lot more of us would be alive today, and that's a thought I've lived with ever since.”

A wind voice comes through the trees. The fire roars in the moat, making supplies of the gasoline.

“You look at me and see the people we lost, and I understand that, but don't punish these faces behind me simply because they don't see the same. The only thing they're guilty of is sticking by me when they should have been more concerned with keeping themselves alive.” He looks back at them. “They bet on the wrong horse. We make choices and stick by them, even if it means leaving everything else behind. But I couldn't live with myself if that meant they were forced to wander in the dark for the rest of their lives.”

He turns back to the other group. “If you want to sentence someone to death, it should be me. So let them back in, and I'll walk away.”

“We can discuss this later,” Boyd says.

“You'll never see my face again. Working together, you'll have enough time to build up your food supplies before winter.”

No one speaks, so it's my turn to step forward.

“Child can help you hunt.”

“We're not letting monsters live in the base,” Rachel says, “that was Graham's idea and none of us agreed with it.”

“She can stay in the outside building, the guard room. With all the supplies she'll find for you she won't be a danger. She'll keep to herself and behave. You can stay away from her and come to her when you need her. You've seen her, how good she is. She doesn't want to hurt anyone.”

All eyes turn to Child. She looks around at them with shyness in her moves. Then she says, “Can help.”

“It's the only chance you have of making it through the winter,” Terence says.

All is quiet except for the fire. It's hard to believe it, but as the faces of the other group look to each other they seem to be open, thinking, not saying no but really considering what Terence said to them. After a minute of this they face us again. Rachel speaks for them.

“We still have unfinished business with the other one.” Her eyes avoid me. “We haven't forgotten how it murdered Tom in cold blood.”

“What are you talking about, I'm right here.” Tommy raises his hand.

Vanessa says, “They're talking about Tom, idiot, not you.”

“Never mind. Wrong guy,” he calls out. Vanessa shakes her head.

Terence clears his throat. “I heard what she did, but it wasn't in cold blood. Tom provoked her into protecting herself and the child.”

“That's true,” Neil offers.

“It don't matter,” Cruz growls at him, “rules are rules. If we don't got that, we got nothin'.”

Before they can argue any more I stop them. “I'm only asking you to let Child live here. I won't be staying.”

“No!” Child shouts at me, her face a thing to give the fear. She runs into my leg biting and clawing at it, and both groups back away as I pull her off and stop her claws from scratching. When I look into her eyes there's bastard water coming down from them.

“What are you doing,” I ask her.

“No go.”

I'm not sure what to say to this, but before I have a chance I pick up a familiar scent in the air. A second later a sound comes from the nearby wood, up the curve of land: a clapping sound, slow and repeated.

It's Graham. Watching us from above. Smiling.

**

The real people aren't happy to see Graham coming down the curve of the mountain, holding onto trees for balance. They smell of anger as he goes past them, their fingers tight on their guns.

“You've outdone yourself, this is a great show you're putting on.” He keeps smiling as he moves through the real people. Meanwhile, Terence has his eyes closed as he breathes deeply and slowly, his heart beating faster.

Rachel crosses her arms. “We told you not to come back until you did what we asked.”