City of Beasts

by Corrie Wang

  “All I’m saying is with your face, boys were going to look at you no matter what I did. But if you get into trouble and any of them seem to recognize the king beneath the queen, then you can’t go acting all awkward, freezing up the way you do around Sway.”

  “I don’t freeze up around Sway.”

  “Trust me,” Comma says. “You do.”

  I look to Su.

  “Like a tongue to a light post in winter,” she confirms.

  Comma snorts as he pulls back another section of curtains to reveal a screen that’s only minutely smaller than the one in the living room. It’s surrounded by shelves filled with hundreds and hundreds of DVDs and VHS tapes. Even though he must have seen these countless times, he sighs lovingly.

  “And if you freeze up around other males, they’ll be onto you in a minute because—and I’m speaking from experience—hot swans are never afraid of the glittering God-light that the heavens cast on us. Ah, here it is. I leave this one queued up.”

  “What is all this?” I ask.

  I run my fingers across the covers as he takes a VHS tape from the shelf and puts it into a player. One of his well-plucked eyebrows lifts when he looks at me again.

  “My job. I have the largest collection of porn in the whole city. I rent titles out for twenty bucks a pop. Though half of that is a deposit.”

  “We are not watching porn,” Su says, not quite shouting, but not quite not shouting.

  Comma taps play. There’s a soft electronic purr. I shield my eyes and peer through my fingers. On-screen, a substantial blond fee is sashaying across a stage in a bright pink dress singing about diamonds.

  “This isn’t porn,” Su says, confused. “This is a regular movie.”

  “Does it have nags in it?” Comma asks. “Yes? Then it’s porn. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 1953. That, Glori love, is the patron saint of swans everywhere. Mr. Marilyn Monroe. That is femininity.”

  Only it isn’t. As Comma scans all his other DVD cases, pulling out movies I must watch while there’s still daylight hours, I can’t help wondering if we are now totally divorced from what we used to be as fees, or if back then we were subjugated to be fees that we weren’t.

  Outside, the sun is setting, and along with it, any momentary comfort I felt while wrapped up in Comma’s preening. I’m not simply playing dress-up. Lives are at stake. Two Five’s. Mine. Sway’s. And to succeed I have to pretend to be something that I couldn’t be less similar to. With all this powder and gloss, I have never felt so unconfident or more exposed. It is neither a feeling I am used to nor one that I enjoy.

  Just then, Comma’s portable blips, and Sway says, “Mayor raised the reward to sixty-K.”

  “Comma, I’m never going to pull this off, am I?” I ask.

  He pauses as he thumbs through DVD cases and gives me a weak smile. “Well, little nag, it would seem you’re certainly going to have to try.”

  I slip away and leave Su with Comma. Over the last number of minutes, we watched an array of the best clips from some of Comma’s favorite pre-Night films as a last-ditch effort at desensitization. Only, unlike Su, I haven’t enjoyed any of the best parts. Or any of the films, period. Weirder than seeing the old-world fees with their painted faces, skeletal wrist bones, and unserviceable, weaponless attire was seeing them interact with the males.

  “Boy, stop hiding your eyes. This isn’t Eighty-Nine Killings, it’s a rom-com.”

  But I couldn’t help it. All those started-then-stopped sentences, held breaths, long looks. The tension between the genders made my insides feel squishy, and I kept asking, “Are they going to fight now?” only to watch the two actors kiss instead.

  Outside on the fire escape, I can finally breathe again. I also instantly know where we are. The boys have taken up residence in the massive redbrick factory with the smokestacks that’s right across the river from the oldest house on Grand Island. The place where Two Five and I used to play hotel. My brother and I have stood directly across from this exact spot trying to guess what this factory used to produce. I told Twofer it was where clouds were made.

  “Is that why there are so many?” he replied, eyes wide.

  Tonight, those clouds are burning red with sunset. And when I climb up to the roof, I see that what is actually being produced here is something I’d never have come up with in my wildest fabrications. Stunned laughter burbles up from my chest. It’s like stepping back in time, but like, way back. Back to when Comma’s movies were new. Back to a world when people “holiday shopped” and went to something called buffets that were “all you can eat.” (Thank you, Liyan, for the nostalgic bedtime stories about the old world.)

  A row of greenhouses runs to my left, each lit with solar-powered pink lights that illuminate rows of crops in their warm party glow. I can see peas, beans, beets, and kale. Behind the greenhouses are stately rows of wheat sheltered from the snow by giant tarps and warmed by solar heaters. Beyond that is a grove of fruit trees, now barren, along with a lone scrappy pecan tree like the ones we have on the island. Our farms are impressive as well, but they are entirely indoors, maintained by lab techs. Here, they have a massive chicken coop and an enclosure with goats milling around. The animals cry plaintively when they spot me.

  How amazing would it be if Two Five could grow up in a place like this?

  Thunder booms not far off. Yet there isn’t a single rain cloud in the sky. Only the normal haze. Strange. And that’s when I hear something even stranger.

  Barking.

  It’s resonating from a woodshed that would make a great fort for Two Five. I peek inside. Sway is on the ground being knocked over by a swarm of bread loaf–size, wiggling, yapping, fawn-colored animals.

  Liyan said there were rumors that post-Night, an “activist” liberated the surviving non-predator animals from the zoo. That now buffalo actually roamed around Buffalo. (Though, as everyone knows, the animals are actually called bison.) And for a moment I think, Wolves. But no. I’m looking at dogs. Actual, tame dogs. From the library books that Twofer had me check out on a weekly basis, I know dogs were plenty common before the planet crash. But after the Night, most domesticated animals died either from radiation sickness or because their food supply couldn’t be sustained.

  A grown dog growls at me from inside a wooden pen. Sway pushes the puppies off and reaches for a pair of nunchakus, which do not seem like the most effective weapon for him, seeing as he can barely coordinate his blinks.

  “Yo,” he says when he sees me. “You know you’re not allowed up here. Comma’s downstairs, novio.”

  He thinks I’m a male! The puppies bombard him again as he tries to get to his feet.

  “You need me to draw you a map, slick?”

  “Sway, it’s me.”

  Calling it flamboyant camouflage, Comma painted a cream streak across one of my eyelids. From another tin, he dusted some pink high up on my cheekbones. My nails are a delicate blue. Grand would be horrified, but the colors are the one thing I love. Twofer would as well. Telling from Sway’s expression, he is not a fan.

  “Staring,” I say as I wobble in my ridiculous high white boots.

  “Sorry,” he says. “But you look so…”

  My fingers find the paperclip necklace Two Five made me. “It’s like us,” he said when he gave it to me. “Hard to part.” Comma said it looked like I found it on something called “the dressing room floor of an H&M” and ruined my look. I told him it was nonnegotiable. As Sway searches for the right words, I realize I’m holding my breath.

  Oh my mother. Held breaths, awkward silences? I’m rom-com-ing! With a beast.

  “I look so what?” I ask Sway, my own voice sounding strangely choked.

  “Weird,” he finishes.

  Not good or bad. Weird.

  Which is true.

  I could take weird. And I could definitely take him not analyzing my looks anymore.

  “You know,” I say, “Twofer and I used to play right across the river. We’ve always wondered w
hat this place was.”

  “It used to be a coal-fueled power plant. It was called a steam station. Do you ever get angry at our ancestors? Comma’s dad said even before the Night, people knew the planet was dying. Knew it. But they didn’t do anything until it was too late. I kinda never believed him.”

  Before I can respond, a puppy scampers over to me. Unlike its fawn-colored siblings, this one is black except for its speckled white paws. It jumps on my leg. I back away. The sudden lack of support makes it topple to the ground. It rolls over once. Yaps. Comes at me again.

  “He won’t hurt you.” Sway watches me in that way that tells me, fee or male, I’m doing something distinctly strange. “You can pet him.”

  I lean down hesitantly. The puppy nibbles my finger. Something taps at my memory, like drops of water from a broken faucet.

  “I think we raised dogs, too.”

  But it was at the labs and I don’t remember them being very nice. Sway goes still. I’m telling him something new. I force a laugh, sit down. The puppy immediately climbs into my lap and chews on my sweater.

  “Sway, before we leave, I need to ask you something.”

  He nods; his eyes are expectant. “Why am I helping you?” he asks.

  “Well…yes.”

  When it would be so much easier to turn us in. When the boys had built such an incredible situation for themselves here and were risking it all by hiding us. When Comma disagreed with the decision. Why? Why in the world help us?

  “Did Comma tell you how we came to live together?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “A man sold me to Comma’s dad shortly after the divide. Just knocked on their door and asked Rugged what he’d trade for me.”

  “Was he your father?”

  “I don’t think so. He said he found me in a camp outside of Batavia. A mix of men and nags. That my mom was dead, that everyone in the camp was dead. He said he couldn’t raise a toddler. But couldn’t leave me there. Who knows? Maybe he was my father. Anyway, he saw the lights on in Rugged’s house, and did Rugged want me?”

  I rub the puppy’s tummy as I wait for Sway to continue. This isn’t surprising. No one had good stories right after the Night. But it doesn’t make it any less sad. At least the beast saved Sway’s life.

  “Rugged could have been anyone,” he says. “Living that far out from the city. I mean, if I saw lights on in a house now? I wouldn’t go to that house. I’d skirt a mile around it. But, luckily, Rugged wasn’t anyone. And he had another child in the house—he had baby Comma. So he gave the guy some cans of food and a few hundred dollars, then told him if he ever saw him again, he’d shoot him in the face.”

  Sway rubs his nose with his fist. Then plays with a necklace at his throat. Unsurprisingly, his is fancier than mine. A pale green rock attached to a bright red knotted cord.

  “I don’t know what my heritage is. Or when my birthday is. Or really how old I even am. Rugged guesses about nineteen. But that man said my mom was dead. Which means I had a mom. She raised me for at least a year or two of my life. And maybe she is dead. Or maybe that goit lied, and she made it across the bridge to a place where all nags… where all fees, lived in peace. Except I can’t exactly walk over and ask.”

  And then I understand. I could walk over and ask.

  “Is that why you were waiting at the river?” I ask. “Why you wore that coat and a tie?”

  He nods. “I wanted to make a good impression. I guess Cutter wasn’t totally lying. He said he saw a little boy cross the river and blew up all our portables about it. I knew if he was telling the truth, someone would come to get him back. I mean, he’s the first child anyone’s seen in over a decade, since Comma’s age group came of age. Someone, maybe a lot of someones, would think he was precious.” If only that were true. “And then you showed up.”

  From under his hat, his eyes dart to mine. He smiles, almost sheepishly.

  Part of me wonders if this isn’t some kind of sympathy ploy. What better way to relate to me than to also be searching for a lost loved one? Except, as we sit together rubbing puppy bellies, I realize I trust this boy. What’s more, I also think I kind of like him.

  “Seems like you’re risking your life for a giant maybe,” I say.

  “Are you telling me not to help you?” He laughs. “Because don’t get me wrong, Glori. I was kinda hoping you’d choose to go with Su and I could go back to playing video games.”

  My name on his lips is like sweet maple sugar butter. My words drop off. I suddenly feel like I’m wearing my winter coat on a day that’s turned fireball hot and I’m sweating under too many layers. Except now the layers are my skin. As if he’s experiencing this strange heat as well, Sway’s cheeks turn pink. He takes off his hat. While I was passed out, Comma must have shaved his hair. The star is gone, the sides almost bare.

  Unlike me, he does not look weird. He looks nice.

  The black puppy snuggles even deeper into my lap. Trying to dispel the awkward, Sway reaches out to rub the puppy’s rump. He has lovely hands with long, elegant fingers meant for playing piano or making complicated braids or giving fees pleasure. Oh my mother, where did that thought come from? As if he had it, too, we both suddenly realize how close his hand now is to my crotch.

  “Sorry,” he says, withdrawing his hand.

  In our flushed awkwardness, without thinking, I press a finger to his nose. “Boop.”

  Only it doesn’t have the same comic effect that it did downstairs. Instead it increases the tension. I let my finger drop. My hand rests on the floor between us. I am ever so slightly tilted forward. His eyes meet mine. I feel like I’m made of two selves, and one wants to jump out of the other.

  “Glori?” My name catches in his throat.

  “Yes, Sway?” It takes everything I have to force these words out.

  Only he never finishes the thought, because that’s when the building explodes.

  The entire steam station shudders. I grip the puppy tight to my chest. Sway grabs his backpack. We run outside. With the river at our backs, we look toward the sprawling mass of warehouses that stretch out around us. A plume of smoke rises from an abandoned factory about a quarter mile away. More from another a half mile past that. A little—and then a lot—of smoke billows up from the side of our building a few dozen feet from where we stand.

  Again, thunder. Yet I haven’t felt a drop of rain and there is no humidity in the air.

  The roof falls silent as all the animals listen with us.

  “Apocalyptic lightning storm?” Sway ventures.

  “Final world-ending earthquake?” I guess back.

  Sway cuts the generators that operate the greenhouses. The roof goes dark as the rumbling gets louder. It’s not coming from above us. It’s coming from the ground. Crouching low, we run to the side of the building and look over.

  “Oh bump,” he says. “Worse.”

  It’s not thunder. Or an earthquake. It’s motorcycles. At least fifty, each mounted by a pair of heavily armored males, all of their faces and chests painted red. Half of them are carrying torches. The other half guns. Even from ten stories up I recognize the lead male. His motorcycle looks like a personal tank, fitted with metal plates that protect his arms and legs. He is shirtless and, unlike the rest, he is painted white, only his features are red.

  It’s the tattooed beast from the market. Rage. And it looks like he’s brought the entire rest of his mob with him.

  “Why doesn’t the mayor get rid of the mob already?”

  “Because all the other mayors tried, and they’re all dead. Mayor Chia’s take is that we spent the last ten thousand years killing people over different ideologies. If the mob wants to keep Fortitude’s ideals alive and scavenge for existence, so long as they stay in their zones and scavenge only outside the city boundaries, that’s their choice. Besides, even though no one really knows where they come from, their numbers keep growing.”

  Sway curses as a lone motorcycle breaks from the rest and d
rives up to our building. The passenger heaves something flaming that shatters a window. The pair quickly drives back to the pack. The building quakes when their bomb explodes a few floors beneath us.

  “Remember that thing you said about leaving at dusk?” I ask.

  “Right. This is dusky enough for me.”

  Another bomb explodes while we race through a miniature vineyard and head straight for the wheat field. As we enter the tall grasses, the goats bleat with terror.

  “What about the animals?” I ask.

  “They’ll be fine. The roof’s fortified and the mob doesn’t know this is up here.”

  “It sure seems like they do.”

  “Nah, all those goits know is that Comma and I squat in a warehouse somewhere along the river. No sane male would ever choose this building. I mean, all those windows are a nightmare. They’re only trying to flush us out.”

  Wheat lashes at my face and hands. Sway parts a particularly thick clump to reveal a perfect, narrow, snow-dusted path. It would be nearly impossible to find this standing at the edge of the field. They’re not only growing this wheat for sustenance. It’s camouflage. Smart males. Another bomb goes off. Sway is now wheezing, which is weird. We’ve barely run a quarter mile. I’m about to comment on it, when something suddenly launches itself out of the wheat and attacks me.

  “Horns tougher than thorns,” it shouts.

  We crash to the ground. I quickly have an arm wrapped around its neck. Sway skids to a stop, slips on ice, and goes down, too.

  “Comma, are you trying to get yourself killed?” he yells as another bomb explodes. “She could have broken your neck. Would you please wear your glasses already?”

  “Not so long as you think they make my eyes look ‘balloon-like,’” Comma says as I pull him to his feet.

  Sway tsks. “I make one comment and you hold it against me forever.”

  That’s why Comma squints? I’ve seen older fees with glasses but didn’t even know poor vision was still a thing. Not a single Miracle has sight issues. And then, as if by magic, the wheat parts and we’re all standing in front of a prefabricated metal shed. Su is already there digging out the shed from the mound of snow piled against it. Sway types in a key code, then strains to open the door against the remaining snowdrift. Once we’re all inside, even in the dark, I can see the boys beaming.