The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale

by Martinez, Brian

  “It hurt when those supplies disappeared, and I personally took the brunt of the fallout. But she's a survivor, and that's what survivors do. They paw and scrape for every inch. She didn't know who it would affect. So am I happy about it? No. I should have found out from her. But can I live with it? Of course I can, because I've lived with much worse.”

  He turns to Graham. “I've lived with you.”

  Graham's face turns to anger. His eyes wrinkle as he reaches down into his belt, and I see it in slow, the fingers around the handle, the metal shine of the gun in the sunlight.

  Before Terence has time to act, I move.

  **

  Someone is screaming.

  This time it isn't me.

  My teeth cut into cloth and meat so easily now, like a knife heated to a bright glow. Graham's scream meets my ears like a friend. His hand drops the gun but the other comes down on the back of my head, and as my body impacts the ground the air above me explodes with gun voices, one, then another, then another. It's the panic. It finds the real people and makes them fire their guns and scatter into the wood, with them the plan to keep this about talking and not about fighting.

  Graham's foot impacts my left cheek. “Get up you filthy monster.” He hits me again until I'm on my back. My head is dizzy and I can't tell which way is up. I'm back in the lake but there's no bastard water, only the anger of a real person, a weak man who falls without the strength of followers holding him up.

  Someone is croaking.

  This time it isn't me.

  In the edge of my eye: the shape of a crouch. My focus on it is clear for only a second, but it's enough to realize who it is, to see the size and color and heat of the small body ready to attack.

  “What's the matter, miss your mama,” Graham says. Child's stare is a thing to give the fear, her tongue and teeth shaking in her snarled mouth. Graham feels this, and instead of giving her more words he glances for his gun. When he sees it by my open hand his eyes stop, along with his heart.

  “You don't want to fight me,” he warns her.

  “Want,” she says, getting closer.

  He looks down at me through his foggy mask. “You'd better talk some sense into this girl before she gets hurt.”

  “Now she's a girl?”

  He looks from me to Child and back. Gun voices shout nearby, through the trees, screams and foot sounds and panic and fear. Without speaking any more words he turns and runs into the wood. Child goes to chase him but I stop her, tell her to let him go for now.

  “You fought well,” I tell her.

  “No fight.”

  “You did better. You gave him so much fear he didn't want to.”

  I sniff the air for Terence's scent but find it mixed with gasoline and smoke and other real people. Instead I listen for his voice between the shouts and screams. I follow it to where he hides, behind a tree falling apart under the impact of bullets. We stay low and join him. He's surprised to see us.

  “What happened to Graham,” he asks through exploding wood.

  “He ran toward the city.”

  “Sorry I couldn't stay and help but I had more than one gun pointed at me.” He nods over his shoulder. “Cruz has me pinned down, can you sneak around and distract him? A few seconds is all I need. One solid hit in the leg and he'll go down.”

  “If you need to give him the death, give the death.”

  “I will if I have to. Now hurry up, we need to get this back under control before the gunshots attract attention.”

  “I should have told you about the supplies,” I say.

  “No time for that, we'll talk later.”

  Before I leave I wipe my hand over my face where Graham's foot impacted it. I take a bloody hand away and wipe it on Terence's ankle, where the skin shows above his boot.

  “What was that for,” he asks.

  “To find you better.”

  “You scare me a little sometimes.”

  “I know.”

  Child and I hold close to the ground as we leave Terence in the rain of exploding wood. Without saying it Child goes to the right and I go to the left, dead leaves and grass at our bellies and bullets above.

  Cruz hides behind a great, fallen tree, resting his gun on wood alive with green.

  I go around to the end of the fallen tree, where I find it hollow and filled with the sound of winged beasts. There's just enough room for me to fit, so I crawl inside. On the inside the tree is moist and full of crawling things that scurry and wriggle around and over my gripping fingers, and above me, through the wet wood, the gun of Cruz explodes and he curses over it and at it until I'm just beneath him and the light from the gun fire shows through the tiny cracks in the tree.

  One chance. I get one chance at this or I find the death. Or worse- Child does.

  I listen to the way the gun voice speaks through the wood, and I pick my spot. Then, focused on nothing but that spot, I pull my hand down as far as it will go, into the wet dirt and winged beasts, and I explode it up and through the wood. Cruz shouts “Carajo!” as I grab the gun and pull it down through the hole I've made. The metal is hot and burns my skin so I drop it and crawl backward, out the way I came. Above he curses and beats on the fallen tree, trying to break through, making winged beasts and old wood fall onto my head, and the whole time all I can think is, where's Terence? I gave him enough time to take his shot.

  As my feet clear the tree, Cruz grabs them and pulls me out. My nails dig up dirt but take no hold.

  “I don't need no gun to kick your ass.” He flips me over and reaches for my face but I kick his mask to knock it off. It holds tight. “I can see why everybody likes you, monster-girl. You got cajones.”

  I see it before it happens.

  He doesn't.

  Child jumps on his back and sinks her claws in. He thrashes, trying to pull her free, but her small size on his big back means he can't reach her. She uses this as her strength, lets him tire as he jerks back and forth. By the time he reaches up over his head and pulls her free, throwing her to the ground in front of him, I'm on my feet. I drag Child away and stand between them with my claws aimed.

  “I don't want to give you the death.”

  “What makes you think you'll get the chance?”

  “Your lungs are heavy. There isn't enough strength in you to fight us both.”

  He lets out a tired laugh. “You might be right about that, but I bet if you listen real hard you'll figure out why I'm smilin'.”

  I hear someone standing some distance behind me, then spit hitting dirt. It's the man with the glasses and the beard around his mouth. He walks over with his eyes burning yellow. “Told you I'd get it back,” he says to his gun. “Wasn't easy, but like I said, this baby's my favorite.”

  Cruz says, “We gotta wait for Rachel, see what she wants to do with 'em.”

  “If I listened to those assholes I'd never have any fun.” He clicks the gun ready.

  “We ain't here to have fun, hombre, now wait five stinkin' minutes while we look for Rachel. If she says she wants 'em dead, you can be the one to pull the trigger.”

  “Why wait?”

  “Because she's leader, that's why. Those are the rules.”

  “No one leads him,” I say.

  He licks his beard. “That's right.”

  Cruz turns to me. “Estupido, you wanna die?” He shakes his head. “Well, if you're gonna do it go on, but when they ask me what happened I ain't gonna lie for you.”

  “There's an easy solution for that.”

  The yellow-eyed man fires his gun. The bullet hits Cruz and pushes a sound of pain from his mouth. His eyes go wide before he falls to the dirt.

  “With all this excitement, who knows what happened, right? By the way,” he aims the gun at me, “the name's-”

  An explosion sounds. My body is ready, but no bullet comes from his gun. Instead his face changes and he falls to his knees, and in his place stands Terence with the mouth of his gun breathing smoke.

  The
man tries to lift his gun but Terence fires again, hitting him in the head. The insides cover the dirt.

  Terence lowers his gun and steps around the body. “Still think I don't have the stomach for killing?”

  I nod yes.

  “Well, who listens to stomachs anyway?”

  Some do.

  **

  Terence checks the bullets in his gun, his face serious as a starving beast. “This letting Graham run wild has gone on for too long. He's been a slow-moving cancer to this group for years.”

  “What do,” Child asks.

  “I'm going after my brother. And when I find him, I plan to kill him.”

  “What about us?”

  “Follow your own advice- hide, and don't come out until the shooting stops. Hopefully by then everyone will be willing to talk.” He touches my arm with his glove. “Good luck. I mean that. You've been brave today.”

  “No choice.”

  He leaves in the direction of the city, and we watch until he's gone.

  Suddenly the sky fills with an awful, hissing scream- the voice of a Munie, not just one but many of them, too many to fight. They've been drawn in by explosions and fire, excited by the smell of blood on the air. This was the part of the plan that gave us the fear, and now it's become truth.

  As Child and I run up the mountain they appear from the trees, their wide eyes and fast teeth running along-side us. We're strong and fast in the sun, and so they can't catch us. The real people, though, they're in real danger.

  We come to the nervous man, his back against a large rock. Seeing us come toward him gives him the fear, and he fumbles for his gun telling us to stay away as he figures out how to use it.

  “Follow us or meet the death,” I say, not slowing down.

  “F-forget it, I'm n-not coming with you!”

  We pass him without stopping. There isn't enough time to argue with him. The Munies won't wait for us so we won't wait for him.

  “H-hold on, w-what do you mean,” he shouts after us. He doesn't even get to fire his gun before the Munies catch up and tear into him. The sound of it makes me wish I couldn't hear so well. But I can hear everything. Every bite, every snap.

  The fire still burns strong in the moat, cutting us off from the safe place behind the fence. We have to figure out a way to stay alive, and since there are more of them than Child and I can fight, we need help.

  The real people are spread through the wood fighting each other with a shout here and a gun voice there. The Munies scatter, seeking whoever they choose to hunt.

  We pass a body on the ground and I recognize it as a woman from the hotel, the one who tried to run into the water and pull the reaching man out of the gator beast's teeth.

  Rachel is by the fire near the fence opening. Jake, the man with the missing finger, is next to her kicking dirt onto the flames. He stops kicking and pulls out his long knife when he sees us, but his face changes when he sees what we bring with us.

  Rachel keeps her back to the fire. “Friends of yours?”

  I put mine to the fire, too. As much as I don't trust fire I trust munies even less. “You're our friends now.”

  “Nothing has changed between us.”

  The munies spread around, keeping distance. There are five of them, fire in their eyes as they scratch at the dirt and concrete and hiss hungry words at each other like Want and Eat. Child gets too close to the moat and flames touch her foot. She lets out a small cry that excites the munies. Their croak starts low at first but quickly builds, louder, stirred from their throats by the early day hunger.

  I answer their croaks.

  “You're making them angry,” Rachel warns. When I turn to face her she can see I'm angrier than them. She has nothing to say to this.

  The munies attack.

  As their feet and hands find the ground, time slows down. I see the eyes of each one running at me, the spit falling from their teeth, the gray veins in their lips like the roots of dead trees, the stringy muscles that hold the rags to their pink bodies.

  Rachel fires her gun. It makes two of them stop and back away, crouched low to the ground holding their ears. The other three still come at us, and I meet the first with my claws.

  Using the speed of its run I pull it past me and into the moat. It screams and burns and splashes in the gasoline and water. It breathes fire into its lungs, and its pink skin turns to black.

  The second munie hits me from the side and pushes the air from me, almost knocking me into the moat with the screaming munie below, but I hold ground and attack back. It's a female, I notice, before I take apart her face with my teeth. The eyes of Rachel and Jake are on me as I do this, but as much as it bothers them they don't stop me.

  I have the munie's blood in my eyes as I look up from her bubbling mouth. Through the red I can see Child is pinned down by the third of the charging munies. She beats and claws at his chest, and his throat makes a gagging, croaking, laughing sound.

  The other two Munies fall on Jake and Rachel with all their anger, all their hunger. Jake's mask is knocked loose. His blood is, too, shouting into the bright sunlight.

  Rachel's mask is pulled from her face as I jump up from the ground. The munie screams the good scream, the victory scream, but a bullet screams back and passes through his neck. Rachel's face is covered with him. Then another bullet impacts his chest and he falls free of her. She pushes away from him and spits his blood out.

  Werner steps from the wood with his gun breathing smoke. “Stand back,” he tells me, seeing the last of them circling Child. She already gave the one who pinned her the death when my back was turned, and I'm proud of this.

  I don't listen to Werner. Joining Child at her side we circle the munie, the two of us showing teeth and tongues. Child moves first. She runs at him and goes for the legs, but the Munie knocks her down with a hard impact of the fist.

  I join their fight. We roll in the dirt and give each other pain. Werner comes close with his gun. He tells us to get away, to give him a clear shot, but to back away now would be a sign of weakness and get us bitten.

  We haven't come this far for a thing like that, but I will give Werner his shot. The real people are a tool, and tools are a way to separate myself from the beasts.

  When the time is right and the munie is on top, I push my claws up under his belly, grab what I find there and squeeze. His body rises up in shock and pain. Werner uses the chance to put a bullet in its head. Having found the death, the munie falls like a garbage bag to the ground.

  Child has a few scratches on her but nothing that won't heal. Rachel kneels down at Jake's body with Werner's thick face standing over her.

  “Sorry I didn't get here in time to save him,” he says.

  She turns to see him. “We were friends once, weren't we?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I owe you my life.”

  “I'd prefer a warm bed. Suppose yours will do.” Through the trees come the sounds of croaking and running, of gun voices and screaming. Werner takes the knife from Jake's still fingers. “So what'll it be- staying or going?”

  “If you idiots hadn't used so much gasoline, the fire would have died down by now.”

  “We can play this game all day, or we can go save our friends from the things that are trying to eat them.”

  She takes the knife from him and points it at me. “I still don't like you,” she says, “but I see now which side you're fighting on.”

  I put my fingers through Child's hair. “I'm on her side. I'll help anyone who can give her what she needs.”

  She lowers the knife. “That's good enough for me.”

  Werner says, “But if you could wipe at least half that blood off your face, we'd feel a lot better.”

  **

  More than a dozen real people are out there in the wood. From the scents and sounds in the air they're in one area, pushed together to keep alive. From the scents and sounds in the air, the munies are in that same place.

  As the fo
ur of us run through the thick I can hear moving water in the distance, which happens in some places on the mountain and is always good for drinking. Child and I stay ahead of the other two because we're faster than them, and so we come to the clearing first, seeing the picture ahead.

  Bastard water pours from a crack in the mountain. It runs down the curve of the earth between rocks covered in bright, bright green until it falls off further down. Boyd, Kate, Neil, Doc, Tommy, Vanessa and the others are huddled in with some of the larger rocks. Some of them are hurt, with blood on their masks, clothes torn and broken skin underneath. Their guns are pointed in all directions, aimed into the wood, and I can see why: munies watch them from behind the trees.

  We splash into the shallow water to join them. I ignore the feeling of it on my feet, the terrible way it chokes the skin. Munies hiss at Child and I, traitors to the kind, and if I didn't hate them I would agree with them.

  Boyd splashes himself with bastard water. “I'm really glad to see you guys.” To Rachel he says, “Even you.”

  “Are you infected?”

  “My mask was only off for a few seconds.” Behind him Kate sobs into her mask. “I'm okay. It's only a precaution.” Kate nods with a tight face.

  Werner checks the bullets in his gun. “How long have they been waiting out there like that?”

  “A couple minutes,” Neil says, “but they're getting impatient.”

  Someone from the hotel group says, “No one asked you.”

  “Don't forget if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be out here!”

  “Hey, where have I heard that before?”

  “Knock it off,” Rachel says. “We all have our reasons to be angry, but if we don't work together it's as good as committing suicide. Put the past in the past and make this what it's really about- humans and monsters.”

  Someone points at me. “And them?”

  “They're as human as we need them to be.”