The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (27 page)

He won't be happy with me.

He isn't happy with me.

We run.

**

In the croaking streets of the city we fight. The munies chase us through alleys, into and out of buildings long since found the death. The people shoot when they can, guns screaming, munies answering, sometimes falling. It's hard for the people to shoot without stopping to aim, but to stop means to become supplies to the grunting and panting beasts that follow us like a wave of bastard water. So they don't stop running, and only a few munies fall from their bullets.

As we cut through a small patch of trees that have swallowed up the concrete and benches, Tommy trips over something hidden in the tall grass and falls to the ground, hard. Vanessa stops to help him. Neil sees and goes to them, but the munies see, too, and they go to attack.

Vanessa pulls Tommy to his feet as a munie jumps. Neil fires his gun inches from its chest. The body flops to his feet. They run off together and the rest of the munies right after, though two stay behind to make supplies of the fallen.

We come to the part of the city made of brick, buildings of windows with the metal boxes between, older buildings built as real people nests that smell of the death, garbage in the streets and the marks of fire. A munie catches one of the real people at the back of the group and drags her to the ground. The pack swarms on her like winged beasts to quiet her screams, and no one can help her, though their faces say they want to. Instead they use the time she's given them to run, to put space between them and the munies who chew and rip at their friend.

“I can't do this much longer,” Doc gasps, holding the side of his stomach.

Graham says there are only apartment buildings here, nothing we can barricade. “You let the monster lead us into a death trap for her family to slaughter us.”

“No family,” Child yells.

“Can we get rid of her yet? I'm tired of hearing her whine.”

“If you don't have anything nice to say,” Werner says, “shut the fuck up.”

I don't see the New Largest behind us anymore. This is strange because munies don't give up a hunt that easily, and the way his face was filled with hate for me even less. I can only hope that one of the real people hit him with one of their bullets.

The way ahead is blocked, impacted cars held together by growth of green, so we turn.

Waiting for us ahead is the New Largest. He changed his path, went around the building to get here first. Behind him are a few more munies he picked up on the way.

He's smart. Too smart. He has to be stopped.

“In there, now.” Terence points to the door to our right. Boyd and one of the women step to either side of him and fire their guns, making the New Largest and the others leap behind cars. Two of them are too slow and find the death.

“They're catching up,” someone warns. More guns are aimed and fired and more shouting is brought into the city.

Up the stairs. Into the apartment building. The smells of old fire and burned wood live in the walls and floor, the ceiling alive with punched through light like some of the caverns back in the mountain. The only clear way for us is up the stairs which are half turned to supplies for the flames, but still we thunder up and up, all of us, here and there a foot falling through. People with guns join us inside as they run out of bullets, munies gnashing at their backs.

We spread through the floors, through the black hallways and fallen rooms. To fight them outside would be a mistake, to let them move and circle and see perfectly in the light. In here at least their eyes have to struggle, their numbers split. There's a chance of living through this as long as we keep the fight inside. A small chance.

On the fifth floor Child and I run down the hallway to find a spot where we can make a stand. When we reach the door at the end we have to stop ourselves from falling. Without the sun coming in we almost don't see the fall, a hole that goes down to the next floor, then the next, then the next, a kitchen and two nest rooms made into one open, crumbled place.

Behind us: a familiar croak. The New Largest followed our scent. Other munies come up behind him but he shouts and pushes them away, wanting to keep us for himself. They shout back but do what he says, because he's the largest and that's what life is for them. They follow behind waiting for whatever he leaves them.

He stalks down the hallway toward us, slowly, teeth out. His size takes up the space from one wall to the other and he drags his claws on both sides to cut lines into the black. We're trapped. All I can do is watch the black powder fall from where his nails dig in.

A picture comes to me, one I haven't seen in a while. It's my father kneeling with his hands in front of him. These are the times he used to talk about, the dark times when hope is lost and a way out can't be seen. He used to say these were the times to pray to the God to ask for hope. But I've never met the God, never seen it. If it ever was alive I don't think it survived the change. It must have disappeared with the real times, along with the other things of the world.

Child takes my hand.

I close my eyes and I pray. Not to the god I don't know, but to the mother and father who found the death so that I wouldn't. I don't think the God would be angry at me for that. If it really wanted me to have hope, I don't think it would care where I took it from. But it's too late to take it back, and the God isn't here to stop me.

When I open them again I realize I've already found the death. It's the only way I could see what I see. Over the shoulders of the munies, a single flame dances in the darkness. This is strange enough, but as it moves up the hallway a face appears above it, the face of someone who can't be here because they're already gone from the world, already found the death.

Cruz says, “If I was you, I'd be kissin' that floor.”

The flame grows and leaps forward from his hand. It lights up the flame-thrower, the one I recognize from the base, and Child and I drop to the floor. The fire reaches into the munies like a great hand of yellow and white and their heads are sucked up by it, first the ones at the back then up to the front until it reaches the New Largest, his teeth and eyes pulling in.

Covering Child with my body, the heat on my back is the tongue of a hateful beast. I can smell burning hair and plastic. The roar that comes is a mix of fire-birth and munies in pain, and some of my own.

The flame-thrower stops but the flames keep making supplies of the munies thrashing in their rags, turning their skin black and their eyes white.

Cruz winks at me. “Told you, didn't I? Delicioso.” Then he turns and walks up the stairs, further into the building. We're left with a hallway full of sizzling munies struggling on their elbows.

Child opens her eyes. “What happen?”

I watch the munies collapse to their bellies and backs, including the New Largest, blending into the dark floor.

“An answer.”

I check Child for wounds, ignoring the pain in my back and the hole in my hand. Foot sounds from the stairs bring Kate and Boyd. Kate covers her nose and stays back as Boyd nudges a munie's foot. “You ran into Cruz, I take it. He's up there cleaning house right now.”

“But he found the death on the mountain.”

“Apparently not. He was screaming something about fighting his way out of a tree.” He shrugs. “Didn't make any sense to me. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest, if that helps.”

I take a step toward Boyd, but something stops me- a burnt hand, wrapped around my ankle and squeezing tightly. The panic rushes into me when I see the face with smoke rising from it, the gray teeth inside bleeding lips. I kick it hard and the skin cracks, the head thrown back enough to pull my ankle away and back up to where Child stands at the edge of the empty and crumbled place.

The New Largest struggles to his feet, white eyes aimed at us. Behind him Boyd shouts for us to move out of the way and fires his gun once, twice, hitting the New Largest in the back and shoulder, but it doesn't put him down to the floor.

With a damaged roar the munie charges at us and impacts Child and I with great strength. He knocks us backward, off the burnt floor and into the empty, into the darkness and fear and the quiet voice of the death.

We fall.

**

Time slows again. There's nothing I can do as I fall through the darkness but hope, pray that Child, who falls above me, survives this.

The metal pipes that make the skeleton of the building stick from the dark here, poking from the crumbled walls. It calms me to see Child reach for one as she falls and grab it, one hand then the other, to stop herself from falling. As the New Largest snaps his teeth down at me, and I fall to a place I can't see, even if I find the death down here at least I know Child didn't find it, too.

Impact. My back explodes with pain. The air is pushed from me as I land in a pile of black bones. Before I can take the air back into my lungs the New Largest lands on top of me and holds me to the floor. He shouts the angry shout and it stretches and cracks the burnt skin around his mouth, showing the pink underneath. He brings his mouth down to bite me, but my hand finds a bone and hits him across the face with it and knocks him into a fallen vision screen.

I stumble to my feet and breathe, holding onto the heavy bone. The New Largest smashes the vision screen with his fist and runs at me again, his left cheek and forehead bright red from the impact. I swing the bone with all my strength and it cracks against his rib, but he doesn't stop. He rams into me and pushes me back and back against the wall. Black dust falls over us from the burnt wall, and through it I can hear the sounds of other fights, other attacks in the building. Munies and real people against each other, as it always is.

The bone falls from my hand as another picture comes to my eyes, of those days ago when the New Largest held me against the cold cavern wall. The light gun fell from my hand the same way, but just as I thought he was going to give me the death Child bit his leg and saved me. That won't happen this time. Child hangs from a metal pipe somewhere above us, doing her best to hold on. She can barely save herself.

An explosion of pain fills my shoulder where the New Largest sinks his teeth. It's the same place the munie from the bridge bit me as I held onto the bushes, and this is no coincidence. Wounds are weak spots and smell of blood, even more now that it pours down my chest and stomach.

The New Largest pulls his mouth away and smiles my blood at me. Seeing his face this way I realize no one is going to help me. Even at the worst moments these last few days I've had someone with me, either Child or one of the real people with their guns. Now I'm alone, truly alone with this danger, and if I fail I'll find the death before I know if Child is safe.

I can't let that happen.

I dig my claws into his brow and slash down, tearing into his eyes. He screams, blinded and in horrible pain. I waste no time attacking again, this time lower, pulling my hands back, elbows touching the wall, and push them forward with enough speed to dig them in. My claws bury up to the knuckles in his warm gut. His scream becomes the sound of sucking air, useless eyes looking up to the dark ceiling.

The warmth of his insides on my claws, I push from the wall and run him backwards, his arms stretched out, feet trying to take grip, and I don't stop until I reach the open hole that looks down two floors. When I reach the edge of it I let go and let him fall, hands reaching, face blind, full of fear, until the floor of pipes and broken brick and wood stops him at a sudden.

He takes in two breaths, then he lets go of them.

The New Largest finds the death.

Remembering Child, I look up into the dark and barely see her hanging there. She looks tired, ready to fall, and if she does she won't just fall as far as I did, she'll miss this floor and fall all the way to the body of the New Largest and the sharp floor beneath him.

Boyd holds the edge of the broken hallway with one hand, and with the other he grips Kate's arm so she can reach out to Child.

“Grab it,” she says, moving her fingers.

“No reach.”

Kate checks her feet and moves out as far as she can. “Come on, you have to try.” Her words are tight. Pained. “You'll die if you fall. Let go and grab my hand.”

Child has the fear in her. It's keeping her hands around the pipe but she can't hold on much longer. I can't reach them from where I stand, can't help her out of this. All I can do is watch and hope, watch and pray, watch and wait for what happens.

No. That's never true. I can still talk.

“Grab her hand, Child, you can reach it.”

“Mother?” Her small voice echoes through the dust.

“I can see you. Reach for her hand, even if you don't grab it I can catch you when you fall.” This isn't the truth, but it's what she needs to hear.

“Just catch,” she says.

“You have to try to reach it. If you miss I'll catch you, but not until you try.”

She makes a small whimper sound.

“Preferably now,” Boyd whispers, smelling of sweat.