The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale

by Martinez, Brian

  “The sail, for air. And Sekhmet, the red lady, the sender of plagues.”

  “Talk about fear of grave-robbers. They're talking about a curse like Apep himself should should be scared.”

  Mom says, “Perry, Phillip, whoever...can you turn your head back to the right so we can see the rest of the passage?” A few of the screens turn. “It's the same message,” she says. “All the way down to the end, it's the same warning, repeated over and over.”

  **

  The machine makes the dentist sound again and CRACK the wall at the end of the hallway opens up. When the machine pulls the wall away, we can see past the hole. There's a room in there, a dark room. The flashlights hit the dust and don't go very far, so we can't see what's inside.

  “The smell is stronger now,” one of the people on the screen says.

  “We shouldn't rush in until we get a good visual. The satellite image could only pick up a dark spot in this chamber.”

  “What's the matter, scared of running into a mummy,” Phillip asks the news screens. He steps into the cloud of dust and a few of them laugh. They stop when a scream comes from the dust and Phillip falls back on his butt.

  “Phil, are you hurt?”

  “Get your hands off me.” He smacks them away from helping him.

  “What was it? Did you trip on something?”

  He points to where the dust is lighter now. I squint until I can see a hand reaching up, a thin hand like a Halloween decoration, and behind it a face like one, too, with big holes where the eyes are supposed to be.

  “It's just a skeleton,” mom says into my ear. “We all have one.”

  “I'm not scared,” I lie.

  Someone says,“That's interesting. It's not mummified.”

  “There's another. And a third.”

  “Look!” One of the news people points to the wall that's being held onto by the machine. On the side that looked into the room it's all scratched up, like someone was trying to get out. Like they scratched it with their fingernails.

  “Jesus Christ,” a man says, “they were buried alive.”

  It's quiet for a second, then the news people start shouting questions and taking pictures, FLASH, FLASH, and Phillip is telling them to be quiet, stay back, FLASH, FLASH, he warned them about no flash photography, FLASH, and he's still yelling when he realizes they're not taking pictures anymore.

  They're looking behind him.

  The dust is clear now and we can see into the room. It's the size of my backyard and there's five, no six, no seven skeletons on the floor, some of them on top of each other, some of them against the wall, and in the middle there's a giant hole that goes straight down into the ground, darker than the room. The news screens follow Phillip and Perry and the other science people through the wall and into the room. The science people shine their flashlights down into the hole but it's like trying to make the night go away with a nightlight- all you do is see how dark your room really is.

  The walls of the hole are made of rocks. Black rocks. Phillip looks up into one of the screens, and for the first time he doesn't look like he's angry or about to make a mean joke.

  “This isn't a tomb,” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “It's...I don't know. It's some kind of entrance.”

  **

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  “Can I come in?

  Sometimes my heart feels like the door, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, and when that happens I need to put water on my face and feel how cold it is. Just a little while by myself so I can breathe okay. This never used to happen to me before. Not until-

  “Everyone's gone, Sil, I sent them home.” When the door opens mom is talking quiet. “Your face is all wet,” she says.

  “It feels good.”

  She pushes the wet hair over my ears. “It was just a little get-together to celebrate the big day, if I knew it would be like this I never would have invited them.” She looks over at my lamp. “Can I turn this back on? It's dark in here.”

  “It feels good.”

  She breathes out, a sound she makes a lot these days. “You know you can always talk to me. You can tell me what bothers you and we can work on it. That's what I'm here for.”

  My things are all over the place. I should put them away so I know where they are. I hate when I can't find a toy I'm looking for, everything should be in a place, one place where you can always find it.

  “Sil. Please talk to me.”

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK again. I don't like this feeling.

  “If you don't tell me what's wrong I can't fix it.”

  She's crying. I hate myself for making her cry. I'm so stupid sometimes, so stupid for hurting mom and dad. This is all my fault, because I'm too stupid to play without getting hurt, too stupid to take care of myself.

  “It's the people,” I tell her.

  “What about them?”

  I push my record player into place. “There's too many of them.”

  **

  It's been a few days since my heart was like a door. The house sounds normal again, nice and quiet except that mom is on the screen a lot with the science people in the place with the sand and the sun. Today they were talking before I woke up about how a bunch of them were sick with a cold, but they were so excited about what they found they weren't letting it stop them.

  Mom asks Alicia, “Has anyone been in the lab with you?”

  “Not on your life. My mother always told me, don't let anyone into your kitchen until you're sure they won't get snot all over it.”

  “Classy. But good. Even if this is just a seasonal cold we don't need the whole team out of commission. The samples arrived at my husband's lab last night and they're already running tests. At least that's what he tells me.”

  “You're a worrier, Cait.”

  “I know. Harbinger of doom. Has anything new come out of the ground?”

  “What's more interesting is what's gone into it. Yesterday they shipped in all kinds of geographic positioning instruments. They spent the whole morning knee-deep in accelerometers and gyroscopes.”

  “Interesting. How deep is it?”

  Alicia looks over at the door. Quieter, she says, “Deeper than they're telling anyone.”

  “Why would they keep it a secret? Phillip loves having the world drooling over him.”

  “My theory is he's buying time until he can get down there and look around. Whatever is down there hasn't seen the light of day in a few thousand years, this could be a tremendous find with ramifications well beyond our field.” Then Alicia says, “So why don't you look excited?”

  “I'm excited. Honestly, I am.”

  “But?”

  “Since the start of this dig one thing has bothered me- that we had to look so hard to find it. Nothing in the texts, nothing in the lure, not even a reference in any of the local art aside from a few vases. Now we find this chasm which at the very least would have been a landmark, yet it's all completely unknown.”

  “You're forgetting religion. Superstition. People might not have wanted it to be found. I mean, for all we know they believed it was the entrance to the underworld itself.”

  “For all we know,” mom says, “they were right.”

  **

  I like coming home from the food store, getting away from all those people and the loud noises they make. I like being back home with my mom and my room and all my things in the places I left them.

  In the kitchen we put things where they belong. Eggs in the refrigerator, cans in the cabinets, paper towels in the closet. I like knowing where things are supposed to be. I don't think other kids think like I do, they leave things everywhere and forget where they left them.

  “There we go.” Mom puts a big bottle of bleach under the sink. “Doesn't it feel good to have a house full of supplies?”

  I nod.

  “I'll finish up, why don't you go and wash your hands? From the look of things flu season came early this year.” She tickles my side and says, “You don't wan
t to catch cooties, do you?” and I giggle out of the kitchen.

  In my bathroom I wash my hands with soap and really hot water the way mom showed me. In the mirror is my face, but I think about the faces at the food store. The old man in the fruit aisle who winked at me. The lady next to him who sneezed into her hands. The cereal aisle with so many people in it I couldn't get cereal. The boy at the register who coughed and called us over but mom said no thank you and we went to the self check-out instead.

  The water is too hot. I turn the hot water handle off and make it go cold, so cold it hurts my hands, and I put it on my face and feel it on my cheeks.

  I wish I didn't have to go to school next week.

  Back in the kitchen, mom is gone. It's weird because she didn't finish putting the supplies away like she said she would, there are still cans on the table and an empty bag on the counter. I start to put them away, but then I hear mom's voice coming from the room with the screen.

  She's at the desk talking to Alicia. Alicia doesn't look happy the way she normally does. She looks serious, and her eyes have purple under them like when mom can't sleep.

  “It's getting worse,” Alicia says, “Perry and the others are laid out in the infirmary hooked up to IV's. Phillip slipped into a coma and they don't think he's coming out of it. Before he went under he was acting so strange, so...aggressive. Like everything was setting him off.”

  Mom is quiet for a second. “What about you?”

  “Completely exhausted, but I don't think I'm sick. One of the assistants wanted to come in this morning and I practically screamed at him to go away. He must think I'm insane.”

  “Let them think whatever they want, don't let anyone in until I tell you it's safe.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I'm hanging up with you. Then I'm calling the CDC.”

  “Oh my god...”

  “Don't do that, don't panic. Just stay calm, stay put and I'll call you right back with instructions.” Mom waits for an answer. “Did you hear me?”

  Alicia nods. Suddenly she jumps at a sound like a cat scratching on the door to get in. “Who's there,” Alicia says. The sound stops. Then it starts again, louder. Mom asks her what's doing that and Alicia says, “Maybe a jackal, they're always sniffing around the tents.” She gets up from her chair and walks off the screen telling whatever it is to go away.

  Then, really quiet, she says, “Phillip?”

  A ripping sound. The tent. Alicia screams. She comes back onto the screen. More ripping. “Call them,” she screams at my mother, “call them!” She tries to run but something knocks her down where the screen can't see her. More screaming. More ripping. Different ripping. The screaming stops.

  “Alicia!” Mom grabs the screen. “Alicia!”

  Nothing. Quiet. Nothing. Then someone comes onto the screen. Something. It's the hairy man, Phillip, but he looks crazy, pink, red all over him, and he's holding something. Something. It's...

  Alicia's head.

  Phillip's eyes are wide as he opens his mouth and lets out a sound. A croak.

  Mom turns away from the screen. Her eyes are wide because she didn't know I was here. “Don't look at it,” she yells, “look away!”

  Screams. Screaming. My screaming.

  **

  The houses pass so fast, like a blur, like one, big house outside the window. Mom tries to call the CDC people on her phone but she can't, even when she tries four, five, six times, all she gets is a message.

  “How are you doing over there?”

  Houses. Houses. All those houses. All those people.

  “What you saw on the screen, it helps to think of it as not real. You know what I mean? None of it was real. It wasn't real blood.”

  “They weren't real people.”

  “That's right.” I can tell she wants to cry. Instead she holds tight onto the wheel and squeezes until her hands shake.

  We leave our town and go toward the city, on the one road that goes to it. The trees around it used to scare me, thinking of all the things that live in them, all the little beasts, like mom calls them, but now at least I know there aren't people out there, people looking at me, trying to talk to me, and in a way that's better.

  **

  The city is where mom's museum is but we're not going there. Usually when we go there she's calm. She's not calm now, which means we're going to see dad.

  Outside the window are people in their cars or on the sidewalk, talking to each other, walking past each other. In the city people are always in a rush. They get mad at each other, yell, wave at yellow cars, they're late getting places even if they have no place to go. But today they look different. They move slower and have purple under their eyes like when mom can't sleep. We go past a man in the street holding something in his arms, and when I look closer it's a girl my age with her eyes closed. It's on my side of the car so mom doesn't see it. She's driving like we're late getting someplace, so I don't tell her about the girl.

  We stop in front of a tall building and mom gets out and tells me to hurry up. A big guy in a white shirt runs after us pointing at the yellow line in the street saying, “Hey lady, you can't park here, there's a garage downstairs,” but then he sees mom's face and says, “Mrs. Wilkins, haven't seen you in a while. Your car's gonna get towed if you leave it there.”

  Mom hands him her keys and says, “Please Elliot, it's an emergency,” and pulls my hand to keep running. We leave the big guy behind looking at her keys.

  “No problem,” he shouts, big, dark circles around his eyes.

  Before we get to the door there's a fountain to our left with water spraying around a dancing lady, a pretty ballerina. I ask mom, “Didn't you used to dance like that when you met dad? Like a ballerina?”

  Her face is serious. She doesn't answer me.

  The building is shiny inside, a big, open place with a lady in glasses at a desk. Behind her is like a garden with all kinds of plants and flowers, and above her head is a globe with the word CoperniChem on it.

  The lady in glasses says, “Can I help you?” Then she sees mom's face and says, “Oh, I didn't recognize you for a moment. And this must be-”

  “Is he here?”

  “He's always here.”

  “I need to see him immediately.”

  “I'm sorry...do you have an appointment? It's just that he doesn't see anyone who isn't on the schedule.”

  “I don't have an appointment, but it's extremely urgent. Can you call him?”

  “We're given strict instructions not to interrupt him when he's in his office.”

  She shows the lady her phone. “Should I?”

  “If you like, but he doesn't carry his phone during business hours.”

  Mom puts her hands on the desk and leans over into the lady's face. “Pull your head out of your ass, Hope, there are things more important than your goddamn appointment book.” The lady doesn't know what to say, so Mom takes my hand and we go to the elevator.

  “We're going to see your father,” she says. The door closes and she presses the number sixteen.

  The floor is covered in the brightest blue flowers, so bright I have to rub the vines with my sneaker just to see if they move.

  “I'm sorry to put you through this but I couldn't leave you by yourself. Not after that horrible call and all that's going on.”

  My heart is starting to knock again. All I want at this second is to get off the elevator, get off it and run as fast as I can and hide under a desk or maybe in a closet, somewhere dark and by myself. I try to press the number as it lights up so the door will open but mom grabs my hand before I can do it, her red fingernails around my wrist.

  “Sil, this is serious.” She lets go of my hand and grabs my shoulders, pulls me close. “This is hard for you to understand, but what's going on is bigger than you and me and your father. It's about helping people. That place you see on the screen, it may seem very far away to you, but what happened there can happen here.”

  “What happe
ned?”

  “I wish I knew. Alicia didn't deserve-” Her mouth stops, but her eyes start. “We're almost to your father's office. Just be good for me, okay? Just be good while I talk to him. Can you do that for me?”

  The elevator slows down. She moves the hair out of face and tries to smile. The bell dings for floor sixteen and mom stands up straight.

  **

  Dad checks his watch as we come in. “Hope told me you were coming.”

  He looks old all of a sudden. Just like when mom hasn't been sleeping, I don't think he's been eating. He tries to kiss mom on the cheek but she moves out of the way. He bends down to me instead.

  “You're not so little anymore. Seems like every time I turn my back on you you're a different person.”

  “You're allowed to see her,” mom says, “you know that.”

  “I've been busy.”

  The whole floor is his room. He has a nice desk in the middle, a red couch on one side and a bunch of screens on the other. This place is big, and I tell him that.

  “I keep forgetting you haven't been here yet. It's impressive, isn't it?” He stands and smiles at mom. “Did your mother tell you I run the place?”

  Mom says, “I told her.”

  “Did you want to take a tour?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Maybe next time,” mom says. “We didn't come here to visit.”

  Dad goes to his desk. “I've seen the lab at the museum, it's more than capable of doing a few air quality tests.”

  “You bastard, you think I would set up something like this so I would have an excuse to see you?”

  “Please don't call me a bastard in front of my daughter.”

  “I'm not in college anymore, I don't have to leave my hair-clip in your dorm room to talk to you.”

  “You never had to.”