Out of Exodia

by Debra Chapoton

  Lydia chose for us a trio of rooms that are more than we need and quite comfortable. A private exit brings us up and into the horses’ enclosure. The strange idols and chains and leather contraptions in our rooms I carried to the manure pile myself the second week. Lydia spends her days caring for the animals while I devote much of my time in the only real library I’ve ever been in.

  Fourteen months underground. Today I begin as I have for the last four hundred and twenty-seven days by finding Malcolm and walking up the main entrance steps with him, the hum of his box telling me nothing except that it still runs. The cloud neither lifts nor moves nor changes color.

  Loaves plunk to the earth, cartwheeling and tumbling till they roll to a stop against a rock, a bush, or a foot. Even I am bored of this same diet day in and day out, but my health is good and all our people look trim and fit. I brush the dirt from a small loaf and take an unhappy bite, lift my face to the skies with the intention of swearing at the unfailing hand that feeds us, but instead of cursing I clamp my jaw tight as I glimpse a streak of whiteness trailing behind an airplane. The plane circles high above, turns north, and grows smaller. I should give up trying to understand this long delay, but—

  Doors clang open around the fields and children run out wagging banners behind them and chase around in a new game, snatching a bite from as many loaves as they can before their parents emerge and holler reprimands.

  “Bram!” Malcolm’s throaty call directs my gaze first to him and then to the cloud, which lifts in a trembling roll and moves toward the northern border as if straining like a dog on a leash.

  The kids notice the cloud’s movement, too, and begin to shout, but it’s the parents’ declarations that surprise me. I hear the annoyance in their voices; they’ve become accustomed to a lazy life and dread another lengthy trek, burdened with their things, sleeping on the ground, risking encounters with hostile clans. Some claim they’ve had visions of Truslow’s new army marching forth. They’re sure we’d be safer underground and hidden.

  Our numbers have grown by twenty-four this past year, twenty seven births and three natural deaths. Mothers hold newborns in their arms; last year’s babies now toddle; the toddlers run. Seven couples married after Blake and Onita, including my brother Harmon. He took an interest in Marilyn before we left the twelve springs. Now they’re expecting their first child. Even Josh got married, and rather quickly, after my sister ended their courtship.

  People are comfortable living beneath the surface. Too comfortable.

  Eugene Hoi emerges and stares at the shimmering cloud, spits on the brown earth, and tears the banner that Onita made from where it was attached to the hinge of the door. He begins to fold it, then his folding turns to angry crumpling. He drops it to the ground.

  Malcolm glares at him and grunts again. “Knew it had to happen sooner or later. Just when I was gettin’ used to clean clothes and a dry bed.”

  Clean clothes and a dry bed. My tongue lies swollen in my mouth, puffed and dry. I can hardly swallow the last bit of bread. When I finally do I speak more to myself than to Malcolm or Eugene, “Detached banner lays cold.” It means nothing, just a coincidence. I’ve had no special revelations since the wedding feast that should have been mine and Lydia’s.

  My silly gift revises the letters again and I softly mumble, “Cadence and death rolls by.” I imagine Truslow’s army finding us out in the open, exposed. I see them marching around us to the steady rhythm of beating sticks, a length of armored vehicles circling, soldiers taking aim. A flutter of flags falling. The vision vanishes, but my eyes are drawn to the banner on the ground. A startling gust of air agitates the edges.

  * * *

  Eugene followed Bram back down the steps. He’d had a different year than the other judges since he ignored ruling on most of the complaints that came to him. Instead he had arranged a system of “paying favors” for allowing women to resolve their own issues. For men payment was more material. There were over fifty men and nearly that many women under his rule. He didn’t remember how many children that included, but he wasn’t concerned with those under thirteen anyway. His scheme permitted men to secretly fight topside at night and pay him accordingly. He’d amassed a substantial number of items from the losers – things that would have to be left behind to follow the cloud again.

  “Hey, O’Shea.”

  Bram looked over his shoulder and acknowledged Eugene.

  “Look,” Eugene said, “we don’t have to follow that cloud. We’re comfortable here. If the food stops coming we can do what the people who lived here before did. We won’t starve.”

  “And just what was it they did?” Bram stopped at the bottom step and faced Eugene.

  “I know you’ve seen the weapons room. There’s plenty in there. We can raid the other cities. Don’t think we don’t know that you send Blake and Josh out on little forays. I’ve heard the reports. They’ve found farms and towns in every direction.” His hands went to his hips. His chin jutted out, daring Bram to deny the truth.

  “That was for our safety. For our knowledge. We’re not going to steal from others.” Bram turned to walk down the first hallway, the one that led to the open concourse where most of the Reds gathered after breakfast. “And we’re not going to do battle, if we can help it,” he called over his shoulder.

  Eugene stayed put and yelled at Bram’s back, “Well, maybe we won’t all follow you and that stupid thing. There are plenty of us who plan to stay. Got it good here.”

  * * *

  I let my breath out slowly as I walk away from Eugene. He yells after me. I’m not surprised by his threat. He’s been aching for a revolt this whole journey. Got it good here. He’s somehow managed to accumulate little treasures. He’s the one who encourages everyone to wear the orange and black clothing of the earlier inhabitants of Proserpina. Harmon thinks he abuses those under him. Got it good here. He certainly does. Greed got to Hoi.

  I’d grown quite used to not seeing messages in strange phrases this past year. I shake this one out of my head and enter the concourse. Enough light funnels through the random skylights so that most of the ceiling and wall sconces are superfluous. They fluoresce continually though, something we haven’t figured out, but they’re quite necessary here and in the halls and tunnels. Hundreds of Reds lounge on the couches or sit at round tables where mothers teach their kids while they mend old clothes or tailor orange vests or black pants to fit. The space is vast and though the whispered secrets come to my ears as clearly as the happy shouts, the noise in the room is tempered by carpeted boxes spaced unevenly throughout. Poles protrude from the boxes, reach to the ceiling, their use a mystery.

  I go to Harmon first and tell him that the cloud is moving north. He walks calmly over to Teague while I approach Josh. We pass on the same message: the cloud is moving, pack up, we’re journeying on today. The command fans out. There are flustered movements and mixed words of dread and apprehension, but also relief. Eugene struts about signaling with eye and hand, but those he expects to move toward him slip away to their rooms. Only a handful of the original Mourners seem to huddle at his heels, but as Blake and Hamlin and the rest of my “tent healers” make their way around the concourse the mood turns to happy excitement and even those old Mourners trade their dour faces for eager ones.

  * * *

  Lydia noticed the cloud’s movement when the horses she was tending began to whinny. There was plenty of open sky above that hadn’t been hidden by the special cloud these last fourteen months, but now she detected a bluer, wider expanse of heaven. She threw her arms around the neck of a bay mare, her favorite, and gave a squeeze. She took a moment to acknowledge her feelings. She’d complained to her mother just last night how she felt sorry for herself, wallowing in the disappointment of another barren month, another day stuck here. She’d gone back to her room and wept. Though she and Bram spent a lot of time together something—or someone—had come between them. She patted the horse and stepped back. It wasn’t a convenie
nt time for her to travel, but she’d be glad to leave this dungeon of a city. There’d be a lot to do in the next couple of hours and saddling and packing hundreds of horses was not going to be easy. She heaved a yielding sigh.

  * * *

  Six hours passed before the cloud moved again. This time it hovered at the northern edge just beyond the last hidden skylight that looked down into a sealed tunnel, one that none of the Reds had entered. Then the cloud began its own march north at a steady two miles per hour, an easy pace to get the whole town started on its long-delayed excursion.

  Because he’d seen the tears in Lydia’s eyes that morning, Bram insisted that she ride the bay mare. He walked beside them, leading another horse laden with their few things, and using the rod as a walking stick.

  Almost every family had a horse to lead or ride. The number of horses in the stable had grown the first few weeks when dozens of horses wandered back to the hidden corral and allowed themselves to be recaptured. Most had crude saddles that matched the workmanship of the cave-dwellers so they assumed that these were the mounts of the men who were slain in the first battle. The Reds were happy to have the extra horses since no one wanted to walk all the way to Ronel’s camp or the mysterious “prepared” land.

  It wasn’t long before the children, who had all begun the journey by skipping circles around the adults, began to whine, complain of sore feet, and beg to return to their underground rooms. It was hard to ignore them until, just before dusk, the cloud evaporated before their eyes. Most of the Reds had finished weaving their way through an abandoned trailer park and come to the edge of a river. The cloud reappeared behind them as if barring their retreat. The last of the Reds emerged from the white fog and found themselves being led by the horses instead of the reverse, as the animals made straight for the river’s edge.

  Malcolm set his box down on a smooth rock and looked around for Bram. The hum from the machine had changed pitch. If anyone could interpret the meaning of that it would be Bram. Malcolm’s stomach was growling and he wondered if there would be packages dropped from heaven tonight, before it got too dark. People were trying to erect shelters and tents, but he planned on sleeping outside. It was a clear evening, quite warm, and he’d been too long imprisoned in the tunnels.

  He spotted Bram working his way along the shore, helping the single women with their tents and offering encouragement and kind words to the weary.

  “Bram. Over here. Give a listen, would ya?” Malcolm patted the box. The hum had changed its tone again.

  * * *

  Just as I finish helping a widow with her shelter, Jenny waves me over. I hate to put her off, but Malcolm’s voice is insistent and the buzz from his cloud-controlling box is burning my eardrums. I signal to Jenny to give me a minute; she scowls and I wince, as much from her disfavor as from the buzzing sound.

  “What’s the matter, Malcolm?”

  “Don’t know. The plane hasn’t come with supper.” He pats his belly. “Thinkin’ maybe it can’t find us on account of this machine is sendin’ out the wrong sounds.”

  I place both my hands on the warm surface of the box’s top and close my eyes. I see something. Like the river. The black edges of this vision brighten. I see a field. Several fields. Corn and wheat and beans. Then a burst of fire. Burnt fields. Desert. Bare strips of land. Hills beyond. Like a mountain. I see myself on that mountain.

  Then the box cools beneath my touch, the hum changes chord, and I open my eyes.

  “What’d ya do?” Malcolm’s eyes rest on mine.

  I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, I think ya did somethin’.” He points up the river, west.

  I turn and look. Up. There’s a plane, backlit by the sunset. Packages fall in two rows, some bouncing off tent roofs. Malcolm holds his hands up as if to God. His dinner and mine drop neatly into his palms.

  * * *

  Teague brings me two men with a dispute he can’t settle. I’m distracted by the smaller man, whose gangly arms are so long they should be on a taller man’s body. Before I hear the whole complaint, Blake, Asher and Cleavon are lined up with others who need my ruling on their quarrels. It seems that the darker it gets the louder their voices become until the noise is ridiculous and crying babies make it worse.

  “All of you, to the river’s edge.” I doubt they can see my scowl, but they’d be fools to doubt the impatience of my command. Before we move Lydia hands me an oil lamp. I’d forgotten how we’d relied on these simple lights when we first left Exodia. I lead the angry petitioners to the water, where my light from my lamp ripples on the water, multiplies, and will perhaps lend authority to my judgment.

  I listen carefully to the first story. A man named Martin claims that his neighbor shot a hole in his tent with an arrow. He lifts the offending shaft and pokes it toward the oil lamp. The others crowd around and three more arrows are produced. It seems that several arrows have narrowly missed horses, tents, or children.

  “When did this happen? Exactly when?”

  Cleavon has to hold his arms against the chests of accuser and accused. The same for Asher. Blake’s and Teague’s parties have calmed a bit, but angry words still spill forth. Despite the confusion I learn that all the arrows were shot after the meat packages landed and just moments before darkness fell.

  “Innocent. Your neighbors didn’t shoot at you.” I want to call them fools, but hold my tongue. I look across the river and wave my arm in that direction. “It’s a warning. We can’t cross here.”

  “But if the cloud leads us that way?” Blake clutches an arrow, ready to fight in the dark if he has to.

  I nod my head. “You men stand guard along the river tonight. If the cloud moves I’ll cross alone. I’ll find who’s shooting arrows at us.”

  There’s a rumble in the distance that only I can hear at first. No one else reacts until the sound grows loud enough. Car engines! The purr of solar cars and hybrids sends something worse than shivers up my spine. I hear the vehicles bumping across the fields and up to the waterline. I should blow out my lamp, but we stand frozen, straining to see. Suddenly one horn honks then they all do, headlights pierce the night, and we instinctively duck for cover. There’s no expected gunshot, only the whoosh of a night arrow that lands at my feet, a note attached, unevenly written on a piece of thin birch bark. Go back to your hole in the ground. Or die!

  I stare at the handwritten words. They think we’re the cave-dwellers. They’re afraid, but ready to fight. The letters do not reform into any divine message though I start to see individual words. Good words. Ledger. Truth. Honor. Holy. Light. And bad words. Greed. Death. And one word that could be a message: Outrun.

  I crumple the note, whisper its message to the men, and give them a mission. When dawn comes and we all emerge from our tents, no one can be wearing the orange and black of the vanquished cave-dwellers. No one. The lights across the river blink out, the engines stop purring, but the threat remains.

  * * *

  The four judges and Bram, along with the eight men who’d come for resolution, separated and sneaked from tent to tent, whispering the morning’s plan. Most of the Reds passed their orange garments to the messengers, who threw them in piles along the shore.

  At first light the Reds peeked to see a line of vehicles facing them from the other side. The morning rays didn’t catch on the muddy bumpers or even reflect off the dirty windshields. On the Red side of the river there was also a line, an orange line, made up of the surrendered clothing. Several Red men came out into the open and made a brave show of burning the piles of orange, holding up vests and jackets, letting the flames leap down sleeves and up pant legs before dropping them back into the ashes.

  Bram mounted the bay, held the rod in his left hand, and guided the horse into the shallows. Lydia had tied a banner to the rod, hoping that these new enemies would look peacefully on him.

  Bram was a third of the way across when the loaves began to fall. The people in the cars opened the
ir doors, crouched behind them with weapons ready, and watched Bram get nearer. They watched the skies, too, for not only was bread raining down, but that strange glowing cloud had begun to move against the wind and crossed the river above the single horse and rider. The mare swam for several yards, the water reaching the top of Bram’s thighs, before it got shallow again and she found her footing. She finished the crossing, but faltered on the pebbles. Bram pulled her to a stop, stuck the rod into the ground, dismounted, and dropped the reins. He opened his palms and walked forward. A dozen loaves fell around him. He gathered them up and continued toward the largest car.

  “We’re not from Proserpina! There are no more people who live underground. They’ll never raid your villages again.” He drew close enough that the man who’d stayed inside the largest car now sounded three short honks and stepped out, rising to a height equal to Bram’s. He rolled his neck and blinked his red-rimmed eyes with sluggish indifference.

  “Yesterday you wore the colors of the enemy. Do you think burning some clothes can fool us? Who are you?” There was deep authority in his voice, but also a suggestion of confused restlessness.

  “I’m Bram O’Shea. These are Reds, escaped from Exodia.”

  “Exodia?

  “The Capitol City, head of the ninety states.” Bram tried for a friendly chuckle and added, “Or twenty-five states.”

  “I know about Exodia. Know it by another name. They don’t rule here. This here is the twenty-sixth state. Call ourselves Grays.” The man shifted his weight, bobbled unsteadily. His voice grew louder. “If your people try to cross that river they’ll have to pay a tax. How many horses do you have?”

  Bram ignored the question and instead held out the loaves, presenting the warm bread as a peace offering. “Look, we don’t intend any harm. We were wrong to wear the colors of your enemies. We’ve destroyed the clothing. Now let us pass.”

  Several other Grays moved forward, some threatening him with drawn bows and glassy eyes. A few held Suppression carbines, their fingers trembling near the triggers. Blank stares.