Wool

by Hugh Howey

Page 57

 

  Juliette checked the offices and found nothing for warmth. No coveralls, no curtains. She moved toward the dining hall, was turning to enter, when she thought she heard something beyond the next plot of plants. A click. A crackle. More relays for the lights? Stuck, perhaps?

  She peered down the hall and into the grow station beyond. The lights were brighter there, warming up. Maybe they had come on sooner. She crept down the hallway toward them, drawn like a shivering fly to a flame, her arms bursting with goosebumps at the thought of drying out, of getting truly warm.

  At the edge of the station, she heard something else. A squeal, maybe metal on metal, possibly another circulation pump trying to kick over. She and Solo hadn’t checked the other pumps on this level. There was more than two people could eat or drink in the first patches.

  Juliette froze and turned around to look behind herself.

  Where would she set up camp if she were trying to survive in this place? In IT, for the power? Or here, for the food and water. She imagined another man like Solo squeezing through the cracks in the violence, laying low and surviving the long years. Maybe he’d heard the air compressor earlier, had come down to investigate, got scared, hit Solo over the head and ran. Maybe he grabbed their gear bag just because it was there, or maybe it had been knocked under the railing by accident and had sunk to the pits of Mechanical.

  She held the knife out in front of herself and slid down the hallway between the burgeoning plants. The wall of green before her parted with a rustle as she pushed through. Things were more overgrown here. Unwelcoming. Not picked over. This filled her with a mix of emotions. She was probably wrong, was probably hearing things again just as she had for weeks, but part of her wanted to be right. She wanted to find this man who was like Solo. She wanted to make contact. Better that than living in fear of someone in every shadow, behind every corner.

  But what if there was more than one of them? Could a group of people have survived this long? How many could there be and go undetected? The silo was a massive place, but she and Solo had spent weeks in the down deep, had been in and out of these farms several times. Two people, an old couple, no more. Solo had said they were his age. They would have to be.

  These calculations and more ran through her mind, convincing her that she had nothing to be afraid of. She was shivering, but her adrenaline was pumping. She was armed. The leaves of wild and unkempt plants brushed against her face; Juliette pushed through this dense outer barrier and knew she’d found something on the other side.

  The farms here were different. Groomed. Tamed. Recently guided by the hand of man. Juliette felt a wash of fear and relief, those two opposites twisting together like staircase and rail. She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want this silo to be so desolate and empty, but she didn’t want to be attacked. The first part of her felt an urge to call out, to tell whoever was in there that she meant no harm. The second part tightened its grip on the knife, clenched chattering teeth together, and begged her to turn and run.

  At the end of the groomed grow station, the hallway took a dark turn. She peered around the corner into more unexplored territory. A long patch of darkness wrapped toward the other side of the silo, a distant glow of light emanating from what was probably yet another crop station sucking juice from IT.

  Someone was here. She knew it. She could feel the same eyes she’d felt for weeks, could sense the whispers on her skin, but this time she wasn’t imagining it; she didn’t have to fight the awareness or think she was going crazy. With her knife at the ready and the welcomed thought that she was between this someone and defenseless Solo, she moved slowly but bravely into the dark hall, passing open offices and tasting rooms to either side, one hand on the wall to guide and steady herself—

  Juliette stopped. Something wasn’t right. Had she heard something? A person crying? She backed up to the previous door, could barely see it in front of herself, and realized it was closed. The only one she could see along the hall that was closed.

  She stepped away from the door and knelt down. There had been a noise inside. She was sure of it. Almost like a faint wail. Looking up, she saw in the wan light that some of the overhead wires diverted perpendicular to the rest and snaked through the wall above the door.

  Juliette moved closer. She crouched down and put her ear to the door. Nothing. She reached up and tried the knob, felt that it was locked. How could it be locked, unless—?

  The door flew open—her hand still on the knob—it yanked her into the darkened room. There was a flash of light, and then a man over her, swinging something at her head.

  Juliette fell onto her ass. A silver blur moved past her face, the crunch of a heavy wrench slamming into her shoulder, knocking her flat.

  There was a high pitched scream from the back of the room. It drowned out Juliette’s cry of pain. She swung the knife out in front of her, felt it hit the man’s leg. The wrench clattered to the ground, more screams, people shouting. Juliette kicked away from the door and stood, clutching her shoulder. She was ready for the man to pounce, but her attacker was backing away, limping on one foot, a boy no more than fourteen, maybe fifteen.

  “Stay where you are!” Juliette aimed the knife at him. The boy’s eyes were wide with fear. A group of kids huddled against the back wall on a scattering of mattresses and blankets. They clung to one another, their wide eyes aimed at Juliette.

  The confusion was overwhelming. She was seized by the sensation of wrongness. Where were the others? The adults? She could feel people with bad intentions sliding down the dark hallway behind her, ready to pounce. Here were their kids, locked away for safety. Soon, the mother rats would be back to punish her for disturbing their nest.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, her hand trembling from the cold, the confusion, the fear. She scanned the room and saw that the boy standing, the one who had attacked her, was the oldest. A girl in her teens sat frozen on the tangle of blankets, two young boys and a young girl clinging to her.

  The eldest boy glanced down at his leg. A stain of blood was spreading across his green coveralls.

  “How many are there?” She took a step closer. These kids were obviously more afraid of her than she was of them.

  “Leave us alone!” the older girl screamed. She clutched something to her chest. The young girl beside her pressed her face into the older girl’s lap, trying to disappear, to not be seen by not seeing. The two young boys glared like cornered dogs, but didn’t move.

  “How did you get here?” she asked them. She aimed the knife at the tall boy, but started to feel silly for wielding it. He looked at her in confusion, not comprehending the question, and Juliette knew. Of course. How would there be decades of fighting in this silo without that second human passion?

  “You were born down here, weren’t you?”

  Nobody answered. The boy’s face screwed up in confusion, as if the question were mad. She peeked back over her shoulder.

  “Where are your parents? When will they be back? How long?”

  “Never!” the girl screeched, her head straining forward from the effort. “They’re dead!”

  Her mouth remained open, her chin trembling. The tendons stood out on her young neck.

  The older boy turned and glared at the girl, seemed to want her to remain quiet. Juliette was still trying to comprehend that these were mere kids. She knew they couldn’t be alone. Someone had attacked Solo.

  As if to answer, her eyes were drawn to the wrench on the decking. It was Solo’s wrench. The rust stains were distinctive. How was that possible? Solo had said—

  And Juliette remembered what he’d said. She realized these kids, this young man, was the same age that he still saw himself. The same age he’d been when he’d been left alone. Had the last survivors of the down deep perished in recent years, but not before leaving something behind?

  “What’s your name?” Juliette asked the boy. She lowered
her knife and showed him her other palm. “My name’s Juliette,” she said. She wanted to add that she came from another silo, a saner world, but didn’t want to confuse or freak them out.

  “Rickson,” the boy snarled. He puffed out his chest. “My father was Rick the Plumber. ”

  “Rick the Plumber. ” Juliette nodded. She saw along one wall, at the end of a tall dune of supplies and scavenges, the gear bag they’d stolen. Her change of clothes spilled out the gaping mouth of the bag. Her towel would be in there. She slid toward the bag, an eye on the kids huddled together on the makeshift bed, the group nest, wary of the older boy.

  “Well, Rickson, I want you to gather your things. ” Kneeling by her bag, she dug inside and searched for the towel. She found it, pulled it out and rubbed it over her damp hair, an indescribable luxury. There was no way she was leaving them here, these kids. She turned to face the other children, the towel draped across the back of her neck, their eyes all locked on hers.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Get your things together. You’re not going to live like this—”

  “Just leave us,” the older girl said. The two boys had moved off the bed, though, and were going through piles of things. They looked to the girl, then to Juliette. Unsure.

  “Go back to where you’re from,” Rickson said. The two eldest children seemed to be gaining strength from each other. “Take your noisy machines and go. ”

  That’s what this was about. Juliette remembered the sight of the compressor on its side, more heavily attacked maybe than Solo had been. She nodded to the two boys, had their ages pegged for ten or eleven. “Go on,” she told them. “You’re gonna help me and my friend get home. We have good food there. Real electricity. Hot water. Get your things—”

  The youngest girl cried out at this, a horrible peal, the same cry Juliette had heard from the dark hallway. Rickson paced back and forth, eyeing her and the wrench on the floor. Juliette slid away from him and toward the bed to comfort the young girl, when she realized it wasn’t her squealing.

  Something moved in the older girl’s arms.

  Juliette froze at the edge of the bed.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Rickson took a step toward her.

  “Stay!” She aimed the point of the knife at him. He glanced down at the wound on his leg, thought better of it. The two boys froze in the act of stuffing their bags. Nothing in the room moved save the baby squealing and fidgeting in the girl’s arms.

  “Is that a child?”

  The girl turned her shoulders. It was a motherly gesture, but the girl couldn’t be more than fifteen. Juliette didn’t know that was possible. She wondered if that was why the implants went in so early. Her hand slid toward her hip almost as if to touch the place, to rub the bump beneath her skin.

  “Just go,” the teenager whimpered. “We’ve been fine without you. ”

  Juliette put down the knife. It felt strange to relinquish it but more wrong to have it in her hand as she approached the bed. “I can help you,” she said. She turned and made sure the boy heard her. “I used to work in a place that cared for newborns. Let me—” She reached out her hands. The girl turned more toward the wall, shielding the child from her.

  “Okay. ” Juliette held up her hands, showed her palms. “But you’re not going to live like this anymore. ” She nodded to the young boys, turned to Rickson, who hadn’t moved. “None of you are. This isn’t how anyone should have to live their days, not even their last ones. ”

  She nodded to herself, her mind made up. “Rickson? Get your things together. Only the necessities. We’ll come back for anything else. ” She dipped her chin at the younger boys, saw how their coveralls had been chopped at the knees, their legs covered in grime from the farms. They took it as permission to return to packing. These two seemed eager to have someone else in charge, maybe anybody other than their brother, if that’s what he was.

  “Tell me your name. ” Juliette sat down on the bed with the two girls while the others rummaged through their things. She fought to remain calm, to not succumb to the nausea of kids having kids.

  The baby let out a hungry cry.

  “I’m here to help you,” Juliette told the girl. “Can I see? Is it a girl or a boy?”

  The young mother relaxed her arms. A blanket was folded away, revealing the squinting eyes and pursed red lips of a baby no more than a few months old. A tiny arm waved at its mother.

  “Girl,” she said softly.

  The younger girl clinging to her side peeked around the mother’s ribs at Juliette.

  “Have you given her a name?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. ”

  Rickson said something behind her to the two boys, trying to get them not to fight over something—

  “My name’s Elise,” the younger girl said, her head emerging from behind the other girl’s side. Elise pointed at her mouth. “I have a loose tooth. ”

  Juliette laughed. “I can help you with that if you like. ” She took a chance and reached out to squeeze the young girl’s arm. Flashes of her childhood in her father’s nursery flooded back, the memories of worried parents, of precious children, of all the hopes and dreams created and dashed around that lottery. Juliette’s thoughts swerved to her brother, the one who was not meant to be, and she felt the tears well up in her eyes. What had these kids been through? Solo at least had normal experiences from before. He knew what it meant to live in a world where one could be safe. What had these five kids, six, grown up in? Seen? She felt such intense pity that there was this sick, wrong, sad desire for none of them to have ever been born—

  This was just as soon washed over with a wave of guilt for even considering it.