Tales from The Children of The Sea, Volume 1, The Last Wooden House

by Jann Burner

It took Harry three days and three nights to cross the desert, skirt the town, and finally reach the fuel depot that lay at the very edge of the swamp. He was hungry. Huddling in the darkness behind the stark white building, he observed a truck pull in and stop beneath the bright overhead lights. It was a large truck designed to carry livestock. The finish was very rough and in the rear, long wooden slats ran high in the air. He crept closer. Between the slats, he could see the naked bodies of human beings stacked like pieces of firewood, their starved, half-mad faces peering listlessly out through dull, unseeing eyes.

  The driver of the vehicle climbed down from his position and disappeared into the innards of the station. He was a huge, bearded man dressed from head to toe in black animal skins. He returned a few minutes later with two other men. One pushed a large metal box on wheels, while the third carried a bright light which he began to direct in and around the mammoth truck. The driver walked behind and carried a long metal tube. Wherever the light would point up a sick or sleeping man, the leather-clad driver would insert the rod and there would be a short crisp buzz followed by a scream. When all the men in the truck were awake and screaming, the one with the metal box on wheels reached inside his container and pulled out large pieces of hot, steaming meat which he quickly stuffed between the long slats. When all three keepers were busy on the far side of the truck, Harry shot forward, quick as a lizard, and dipping in both hands, grabbed three chunks of the hot, steaming animal flesh and slipped back in the enclosing darkness.

  He sat crouched, chewing on the tough gristly meat and reviewing what he had witnessed on his trek to the fuel station. He particularly regretted the roving dogs that circulated around the perimeter of the Happy Valley housing development. He would have liked to have gotten a closer look at the colored houses.

  As he finished his meal, the giant truck departed only to be replaced by four even stranger vehicles. They were dull black in color and clattered as they rolled up on long metal belts which made shallow, jagged holes on the surface of the road. They were rectangular, and on the top a large spherical metal dome moved this way and that. From this protruded a long metal tube which served as an eye, and wherever the dome stopped, the tube came to rest and wherever the dome turned, so turned the long tube. Suddenly, the dome on the first vehicle tilted up and back, and from out of the machine crawled a tall, blonde woman. Soon the domes of the other three did likewise, and four women stood around smoking and laughing as the station man serviced their vehicles. When he was finished, he slapped his hand on the front of the lead vehicle and laughingly wished them good luck. The woman with the blonde hair responded by saying that luck had little or nothing to do with it; they all laughed as if sharing some great private joke.

  Harry sat comfortably in the darkness, watching the strange vehicles depart and considered his possibilities. He sniffed the air. Winter was approaching and the swamp was on his left. His ultimate destination, as described by Desire, lay far to the East, beyond the swamp--beyond The Wall.

  The sun was rising and he prepared to move, for to be discovered in such a place would be to become like all the others; this was a sacrifice that he was not prepared to make.

  About a mile behind the fuel station he made a sad discovery. The swamp was wetter than he had suspected. While parts of it were relatively dry and supported dense clumps of marsh grass, by far the larger part of the swamp was a thick liquid, impossible to walk upon. Anxiously, he wandered back and forth at the edge of the swamp, his eyes keenly searching for a possible path out of Happy Valley.

  As the sun drew higher his anxiety increased for he knew that at any moment he might be discovered and would soon find himself behind the boards of a truck bound for The Wall! Then there was a noise. He fell to the ground and looked to his left. From out of the early morning ground fog came a dog. It was a very large dog. And immediately behind it came another. Luckily for Harry the wind was blowing in his face and he had but their stench to contend with. They seemed distracted and gave him no notice, though they passed within ten feet of his body. This must be one of the Happy Valley dog patrols returning from their nocturnal excursion, he thought. Soon a continuous stream of the large, shaggy beasts were passing quite, close and though they noted his presence, they did not hesitate, but continued their loping gate back toward Happy Valley. He was relieved but confused by their behavior and then he noticed that in passing their stomachs almost brushed the ground. Obviously, they had so gorged themselves during some nocturnal orgy that they were barely able to trot.

  As he lay in the warm, bubbling swamp muck, watching the wild dogs return home, an idea slowly formed in his mind. If their average weight was in excess of one hundred pounds and if they were indeed returning from across the swamp, then he had merely to retrace their steps and he would find a way out of this Happy Valley. He stood and began to run slowly against the direction of the dogs--out and over the swamp, through the fog in a wildly meandering zig-zag pattern. He was happily surprised to find that the path was much wider than expected. It was as if the dogs journeyed to their nightly feast en masse, first come, first served and then, once satiated, returned in single file. Gradually, as he moved out across the swamp the fog grew thicker while the dogs began to become fewer and fewer. Having no idea how wide the swamp might be, he anxiously increased his stride and began to run, for if he ran out of dogs before he ran out of swamp, he might be sure that when his hunger returned, so would the savage dogs of Happy Valley.

  As the sun grew higher, the space between the dogs grew larger and larger. From time to time, he would have to stop and lay on the ground in order to detect a path through the fog and the mud, but then another straggler would suddenly appear and pass, to sleep off its gluttony by hearth and home.

  As the sun reached mid-heaven, the fog began to burn off, and he first began to hear the terrible noise. The last dog had long passed with a prophetic growl and a fearful snap of its jaws that succeeded in sending him sliding across the foul smelling swamp muck on his stomach. From his position, he stared intently into the fog trying to ascertain the path. As he looked, the remaining fog began to retreat before his eyes. On the horizon, not a quarter mile way stood...The Wall.

  The Wall stretched to the North and to the South around the perimeter of the forest of Content. It was roughly twelve feet high, six feet thick and stood exactly five miles from the banks of the river, Elin, which separated the forest of Content from everything else. It was essentially a defensive structure, initiated at the dawn of time by the Power That Was, to protect the populace of the forest from...Them. The labor force was conscripted from the society's criminal fringe; the political adversaries, artists, musicians, thieves and free thinkers. The Wall's physical construction was ingeniously determined by the terrain through which it moved. In rocky country, it was a stone wall; in forested areas, it was made of wood, and as it moved through arid terrain it became a brick wall. Five hundred yards off to the left of the wall, a large grandstand had been erected. The seating began twelve feet off the ground and soared another thirty feet above the wall. From there, the citizenry of Happy Valley could observe what it was the wall protected them from. Just the day before, five thousand Valley citizens had thrilled to the smoke and smell of a major tank battle taking place between The Wall and the river. Some observers were heard to complain that all the tanks looked the same, but then who could ever really distinguish one tank from another over a twelve foot wall in the midst of a battle taking place three miles distant. Suffice to say that the five thousand returned to their homes and spread the word that the enemy was close, in fact they had crossed the river. Thus additional funds were requested and approved, and the maintenance of The Wall was stepped up.

  As the fog cleared, Harry saw a path and sprinted the remaining distance half crouched, half stumbling. He threw himself beneath the wheels of a long abandoned machine rusting at the very edge of the swamp. Luckily for him the brick making m
achine that he crouched under was long abandoned; the machine next to it was not, and the loud noise it created was grating on his nerves.

  Poised like some huge, black pterodactyl at the edge of a primordial pool, it sucked up the wet swamp ooze through one end and noisily spit out crudely formed bricks from the other. Though some of the objects resembled bricks, most appeared to be chunks of fossilized excrement, and it was with this that they repaired the crumbling wall. It was a sad sight that Harry looked upon that day. Small groups of half-mad, starved, naked men standing nervously beneath the beast's quivering anus, anxiously awaiting the next load of bricks which they had to immediately sort and separate. If they lagged in their appointed duty, the numerous overseers, dressed in long, black, leather mourning coats graciously offered instant motivation. The impetus was delivered like the crack of a shot through the body of a six foot black swamp snake whip. If the laggard persisted, the next load of brick would, as often as not, crash down upon his head and mash him into mortar. And so it went, up and down The Wall.

  The sorted bricks were moved to The Wall in the callused hands of runners. Each runner would carry two bricks, little packages of earth, to be pasted into a flaw in The Wall. While some runners had to travel over two miles, others had to travel but a few feet. As often as not, the runners were relatives of the overseers. Once bricks reached the flawed section of the crumbling wall, they were handed over to one of the many brick layers who would then paste them in place with a small daub of mortar. Since none of the workers were permitted to peer over The Wall, there was no scaffolding. Instead the taller men worked on the lower sections while the shorter men stood upon one another?s shoulders to reach the upper portions. All the while, the black coated overseers would lash the workers mercilessly with their whips and scream incessantly, "DON'T LOOK! DON'T LOOK!" For in truth, if they looked, they would see that is was only a Monday war. But in the long run, it made little difference since no one ever returned from The Wall alive--not even the overseers.

  That is, it made little difference, except to Harry. He had remained crouched beneath the abandoned brick-making machine awaiting his chance to dart across the open area and through a savage dog-sized hole that lay directly within his line of sight. He listened to the harsh explosive sounds of the brick-making machine and mingling with it, in the distance, beyond the wall, a yet unidentified "rat-tat-ta-ta-tat. KA-BOOM!"

  Suddenly, an overseer pointed to the dog-sized opening and motioned to a couple of wall workers. The two runners approached to confer with the overseer and then jogged off towards the waiting pile of bricks. Without a reflective thought, Harry jumped to his feet and began sprinting hard, gathering speed, blocking out all thoughts but one. The two runners, who had just gathered their bricks immediately dropped them in astonishment. The poor naked men on the sorting pile looked up and grinned. Unfortunately, the huge brick- making machine did not grin, nor even hesitate in smashing them into a very poor grade of mortar.

  Harry was halfway to his goal when he looked up for the first time and saw a dark-coated overseer closing quickly from the left. The overseer made an error by attempting to get between Harry and The Wall before raising his whip into strike position. For one unaccustomed to body contact sports, Harry exhibited a natural talent, lifting his arm at the wrist and then bending it at the last moment, so that the elbow neatly slammed into the overseer's jaw, lifting him off the ground and carrying him backward into the residual muck and festering swamp goo that gathered in large puddles in front of The Wall. Immediately, a loud cheer went up from the prisoners. This undoubtedly saved Harry's life, for the majority of overseers were thus forced to hold their ground, fearing a full scale mutiny.

  When the siren went off, only two guards remained close enough to do Harry any damage. One, having seen his partner's mistake, drew back his whip, preparing to trip Harry as He sped past. Harry abruptly changed direction and succeeded in drawing the guard's whip. The remaining overseer, who had stationed himself in front of the hole, was more than a little agitated as he observed Harry closing and still gathering speed. He was intimidated by his size and general state of health for Harry was no docile, half-starved wall worker. At the last instant, the man in front of the hole tried to enlist the aid of two brick layers who stood at his side, but they just laughed. Recognizing the futility of his position, the guard hastily stepped aside as Harry flew past and dove neatly through the savage-dog sized hole.

  The opening in The Wall was wide, but shallow, so that as Harry dove into it, he had to crawl out. He wished to remain optimistic, but when he finally raised himself to his knees and saw the black, one-eyed machine from the fuel depot looking directly at him, he I considered turning back to take his chances on The Wall. But then the turret lifted and a human voice cried out "QUICK--IN HERE!"

  Harry crawled onboard the strange machine. He then quickly slid down inside through the open turret as the vehicle neatly swiveled and started off at a brisk pace across the burned off battle field scattered with rusting war machines and bleached bones.

  Seated at the controls was an old gentleman with a long, drooping white moustache. He was dressed in summer khakis and wore a campaign hat with two bold strokes of embroidered lightening and five small golden stars clustered towards one side.

  "Damned fine work, my boy! Two more seconds and they would have had you for sure!"

  Harry had a hard time hearing the man's words over the rather loud music that blasted from the interior speakers.

  "What's that you say? I can't hear you. I say, I'm afraid I cannot understand what you say."

  "Eh? What's that you say--'hear you?' Of course I can hear you...oh, yes, of course." said the general finally turning down the sounds.

  "My theme music, only music I ever listen to any more; gives me STRENGTH! I say, you made this old commander's heart proud. Two more seconds, just two more and they would have pounded your young ass into piss poor mortar!"

  After pausing to catch his breath, Harry sincerely thanked his rescuer and the inquired who he was and what this thing, was that they were riding in.

  "RISK! I love it! Makes the whole bloody thing worthwhile. My name? Havoc's the name son, General Havoc. War's my game and this fine creation you are riding in is a machine of DEATH! It's pure and only purpose is to facilitate one person killing another. I mean, what is it we have all come here for, if not to dance with DEATH?"

  The general paused as if to reflect upon this sudden realization and then continued in a rather subdued tone. "A sort of quiet, lyrical beauty in that, if you've the sort of mind to ah...drink it in. And so, speaking of drink, you must have worked up a hearty thirst, bucking your way like that through the enemy lines. Say...you are one of them, aren't you?"

  Harry hesitated, not quite knowing how to respond. Finally out of fear, he nodded his head almost imperceptibly as the general handed him a beer.

  "Well..." said the general, dismissing the question with a wave of his hand. "Makes no damn difference to me who you are! Anybody, and I say again ANYBODY with balls enough to break away and take his chances crossing the battle zone to the river is a friend of mine!" The general raised his can of beer in salute and Harry did the same.

  "So, you say there's a war going on here?"

  "A war?" The general looked around skeptically. "Damn right, there's a war going on here--every Monday between dawn and dusk."

  "But, why is the war only on Mondays? Strangest war I've ever heard of."

  "Aye, and it is a strange war. I'm a bit embarrassed at the low level to which the once noble game of war has fallen. It's getting so you have to resort to all variety of subterfuge just to field a single team. Two teams? Well, you can just forget it! Impossible. Why, I've been running the war here for almost twenty years with just one side and it's not as easy as it may sound, not if you want to keep it exciting and keep the morale high."

  Harry must have looked confused, "How can you have
a war with only one side?"

  The general smiled, "Unmarked tanks and no survivors. That's the secret."

  Harry took a deep pull on his beer and eyed this general warily.

  "Depressing, depressing. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that the noise may one day attract a suitable enemy. That's why I keep the loud-speakers blaring out the sounds of W.W. VII night and day. Now there was a WAR you could sink your teeth into!"

  "How long ago was that, General?" Harry peered out through a slit in the side of the machine. The surrounding terrain was a stark, contrasting study in black and white. Smoke was rising from the many small fires, with blackened patches of ground and human skeletal remains evident in all directions.

  The old warrior tilted his head back and tried to remember. "It will come to me..." He wrinkled his brow. "Damnit, I can't seem to remember!"

  Harry sipped his beer and watched the old warrior struggle with his memory. In spite of the general's obsession with death, it felt comfortable cruising inside the great machine with the music playing softly in the background. Harry tried to think of something pleasant to say.

  "How did you ever become a general, General?"

  Havoc glanced at him. "Not a general, son--The General! I'm the only one there is. It was a long time ago...let me think. It was a long, long time ago..." He continued to glare at Harry as if holding him responsible for his inability to remember.

  "Oh yes, I remember, it was my brother." The general's voice began to take on a certain glow. "You see, at that time, long ago, my brother, Civil Strife, was in power. He was the Power that was, as we used to say, and he was concerned because The Wall was not deteriorating fast enough to keep criminal labor force even minimally busy. Well, this was cause for drastic action! He considered cutting back on the number of arrests. He even instituted a plan whereby the spouses of the women, who fought and were killed in The War, would receive healthy pensions. He figured that would make the men happy and thereby reduce the criminal element...boy, was he wrong."

  "Pardon me, general, but what does the number of women killed in the war have to do with the laborers working on The Wall?"

  "Ah ha!" exclaimed the General excitedly, slapping the firing mechanism of his largest gun with a loud explosive report and sending a twenty pound steel shell off over the horizon. "You are one of them!" he said with a suppressed chuckle. "I thought so. You see, the labor force was stocked with criminals and the only criminals left were the ones we called political adversaries or individuals who have harbored a deep and abiding dislike for the Power That Was. We called them 'P.A's'.

  "Only, nobody in those days harbored any deep feeling about anything except the husbands of the bored wives who were always running off to join the Army. So my brother, Civil, came up with the idea of granting generous pensions to the spouses of those killed in action defending their country. But of course, according to the law, any man refusing a pension would have to be carted off to The Wall as a political adversary." The general took a pause to open another beer and then, smiling, continued on, obviously delighted to have an audience. "Pretty clever, eh? Give pensions to the potential criminals thereby cutting back on the prison labor force. Pretty clever, only it didn't work! Backfired in fact. You see, the men were no longer about to fight and die in a senseless pseudo war; that had been a female prerogative for many, many years, but they were still a little ashamed and embarrassed when the little woman was brought home in a box.

  "Most were so depressed, in fact, that they refused the generous pensions. You see, his plan only increased the prison labor force. So, he came to me smiling one day and says, 'Havoc, how do you propose to solve the problem of too many laborers on The Wall?' 'Well, Civil,' said I, 'the problem is a simple one. Widen the wall.' And so The Wall was widened from three feet to six and I was made The General of Happy Valley's all female self-defense forces."

  The General smiled contentedly, congratulating himself on a once-remembered job well done.

  Harry was still a little confused, but then he was a novice in the ways of man. "By that one suggestion you became The General?"

  The General nodded. "But, of course, you must realize, son, you do not get to become a general or even The General based on what you do. No sir! It all depends on what you know." The old man tapped his bird-like cranium in a knowledgeable fashion. "Always remember, son, knowledge is power and knowledge shared with the right people is control."

  "But your brother was the Power that was. Didn't that have anything to do with it?"

  "Well...that too," said the general, a little embarrassed. "But tell me, son, where are you headed? I can't rightly haul your ass around the rest of your days in this tank. Much as I might like to."

  As the old man gazed at him affectionately, Harry told him about his plans to cross the jungle which lay on the far side of the river and eventually reach the Big Sea. The old man's eyes grew larger and larger as he listened to Harry's plans with increasing interest. Finally, General Havoc got so excited, he momentarily lost control of the tank and, in attempting to regain it, he touched off two rockets and 2500 hundred rounds of machine gun fire.

  "The Big Sea, you say? Damn, now that's an idea a man can get his teeth into! If I were twenty years younger, I'd just desert my post and go with you. Yes, siree! The Big Sea!"

  The General then considered fording the river in his aquatic general's tank, but Harry pointed out that there might be a shortage of fueling stations on the other side. General Havoc found this hard, if not impossible, to believe.

  "No," he said incredulously, "they're everywhere! They're EVERYWHERE! Aren't they? But, you're right, of course. I'm getting too old; only hold you up. Besides, I'm firmly entrenched here baby-sitting a sick society full of pansies and retarded children. With my brother gone, it would all fall apart like a wet cigar if it weren't for the few remaining responsible adults like my own self."

  Harry calmly agreed and then, as he climbed out of the turret and prepared to jump down onto the smoking sand, he looked back and gently inquired why nobody ever tried to escape from their painful confinement on The Wall.

  "Oh," said the old warrior somewhat distracted, "some do, but very rarely and most that try quickly get run down by an irate housewife. Seems that most people, given half a chance, would prefer to live in Hell itself rather than take a chance with the unknown."

  "Why do you suppose that is?"

  The general paused awhile before he slowly answered, "Well, I don't really know. I guess because there's always the outside chance that the unknown might turn out to be worse."

  The lonely old commander of The Monday War let Harry off about a mile from the edge of the River Elin, with two canisters of beer, a blood sausage and cheese sandwich, and a prophetic bit of advice.

  "Never forget the dream, son, and always remember, if you can't keep it afloat, at least keep it wet."

  And with that, Happy Valley's only general fired a few more rounds across the river in another futile attempt to attract the attention of a suitable enemy and then disappeared back across the burned off battle field, hurriedly, like some strange hard-shelled desert creature scurrying towards it lair to avoid the heat of the noonday sun.