Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  But the storm ends, and no one starves.

  Early the morning after the last peals of thunder, after a meager breakfast – one sardine each and tea so weak that it’s hardly more than cups of steaming water – Miss calls them all to the assembly room. They know it was not originally intended as an assembly room, but as an armory. The steel cabinets with their guns, grenades, and sabers still line the walls. Only the kegs of black powder and crates of dynamite have been removed. The children line up in two neat rows, boys in front, girls behind them, and she examines them each in their turn, inspecting gaunt faces and bodies, looking closely at their shoes and garments, before choosing the three whom she will send out of the bunker in search of food and other necessaries.

  Once, there were older kids to whom this duty fell, but with every passing year there were fewer and fewer of them. Every year, fewer of them survived the necessary trips outside of the bunker, and, finally, there were none of them left at all. Finally, none came back. Samuel suspects a brave (or cowardly) few might have actually run away, deciding to take their chances in the wastelands that lie out beyond Cherry Creek, rather than return. However, this is only a suspicion, and he’s never spoken of it to anyone else.

  The lighter sheets of rain that fall towards the end of the electrical storms are mostly only water, and after an hour or so it will have diluted most of the nitric acid. It’ll take that long to hand out the slickers and vulcanized overshoes and gloves, the airtight goggles and respirators, and for Miss to check that every rusty clasp is secure and every fraying cord has been tied as tightly as possible. Samuel imagines, as he always does, that the others are all holding their breath as she makes her choices. There have been too many instances when someone didn’t return, or when they returned dying or crippled, which is as good as dead, or worse, here in their bunker in the world after the War. Samuel also imagines he’s one of the few who ever hopes that he’ll be picked. He doesn’t know for certain, but he strongly suspects this to be the case.

  If volunteers were permitted, he would always volunteer.

  “Patrick Henry,” says Miss. Patrick Henry Olmstead takes one step forward and stares at the toes of his boots. His hair is either auburn or dirty blond, depending on the light, and his eyes are either hazel green or hazel brown, depending on the light. He’s two years younger than, Samuel. Or, at least he thinks he might be; a lot of the younger children don’t know their ages. Patrick Henry has a keloid scar on his chin, and he’s taller than one might expect from his nine years. He’s shy, and speaks so softly that it’s often necessary to ask him to please speak up and repeat himself.

  “Molly,” says Miss.

  “Please no, Miss.” Molly Peterson replies.

  “You have good shoes, Molly. Your shoes are the best among the lot.”

  “I’ll let someone else wear my shoes. I won’t even ask for them back afterwards. Please choose another, Miss.”

  Molly is only eight, and her hair is black as coal tar. She’s missing the pinkie finger from her left hand, from a run in with the dogs before they found her at the corner of East Bateman and Vulcan Avenue. Before an expedition brought her back to the bunker two years ago. The dogs got her sister, and she’s only left the bunker once after her arrival. Molly has nightmares about the dogs, and sometimes she wakes screaming loudly enough that she startles them all from sleep, as her cries echo along the cavernous corridors. Her skin is very pale and freckled. She’s small for her age. Samuel fancies if he were to ever court a girl, Molly would do just fine.

  “You will go, Molly. Your name has been read, my choice has been made, and we will not have this argument. No one will go in your stead.”

  Molly only nods and chews at her lower lip.

  “You will have eight hours,” Miss tells them, just like always. “After eight hours…”

  Samuel tunes out her grim and familiar proclamations. No one’s ever come back after eight hours, and that’s all that matters. The rest, Miss only says to be sure his two companions fully understand the gravity of their situation, and Samuel understands completely. This will be his fifth trip out in just the last year. He’s good at scavenging, and Miss knows it. He enjoys entertaining the notion he’s the best of them all.

  “Eight hours,” Miss says again.

  “Eight hours, Ma’am,” the chosen three repeat in perfect unison, and then she shepherds them away to the room where the outside gear is stored. She gives them each a burlap sack and a Colt revolver and a single .44 caliber bullet; the bunker’s munitions cache is running too low to send them off with any more than that single round. She once whispered in his ear, “For yourself, or for one of the dogs. That has to be your decision.” He has no idea whether or not she’s ever said the same thing to any of the others. He doesn’t actually want to know, because maybe it’s a special acknowledgement of his bravery and approaching manhood, and if it’s a jot of wisdom she imparts to one and all, Samuel would be more than a little disappointed.

  3.

  As almost always, Samuel is given the responsibility of carrying the map. It’s a 15-minute topographic map of the Cherry Creek metropolitan area. It’s folded and tucked into a water-tight leather-and-PVC case, so he can see it, yet there’s minimal danger of its getting wet. But Samuel knows exactly where he’s going today, even through the dense fog, so he hardly needs the green and white topo sheet, with its black squares marking buildings and all its contour lines designating elevation. He and Patrick Henry and Molly are heading to what’s left of the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt’s Arapahoe Station dirigible terminal. A few months back, he and two others were rummaging about in one of the airships that crashed when Cherry Creek was hit by the first wave of blowbacks from Tesla’s teleforce mechanism. Deck B was still more or less intact, which meant the kitchen was also mostly intact, along with its storerooms. The two boys with him hadn’t wanted to enter the crash, so Samuel had climbed alone through a ragged tear in the hull. He spent the better part of an hour picking his way through the crumpled remains of the gondola, always mindful of the hazards posed by rusted beams overhead and the rotting deck boards beneath his feet. But, at last, he found the storeroom, the shelves still weighted down with their wealth of cans and crates of bottles and jars, a surprising number of which hadn’t shattered on impact, thanks to having been carefully packed in excelsior.

  Samuel had retraced his steps, marking the path with debris placed just so, then cajoled his two fellows to follow him back inside. The three of them had returned with enough food to last several weeks, including fruit juice that had not yet spoiled. The discovery had earned Samuel one night of double rations.

  “Are you certain we’re not lost?” asks Patrick Henry, his already quiet voice muffled by the respirator covering the lower half of his face.

  “I don’t get lost,” Samuel replied, then tossed half a brick against a lamppost. Someone had long ago shattered the globe crowning the post, or, more likely, a lightning storm had taken it out. “I’ve never gotten lost, not even once.”

  “Everyone gets lost sometime,” says Molly. “Don’t be such a braggart.” She was so scared that she jumped at the thud of the brick hitting the lamppost.

  “Then maybe I’m not everybody.”

  “Now, you’re not even making sense,” mutters Molly.

  “Are you sure we’re going west?” Patrick Henry asks.

  Samuel stops and glares back at the younger boy. “Holy hell and horse shit, I wish Miss had let me come alone. Why are you asking me? You’re the one with the Brunton.”

  No one – not even Samuel – is ever allowed to carry both the map and the Brunton compass. Just in case. Patrick Henry blushes, then digs the compass from the pocket of his overalls.

  “Waste our time and take a reading if it’ll make you feel better, but we ain’t lost.”

  “Aren’t,” whispers Molly.

  “But we aren’t lost,” Samuel sighs and rolls his eyes behind the smudgy lenses of his old blo
wtorch goggles

  “It won’t take long,” says Patrick Henry, and so Samuel kicks at the dirt and Molly frets while he squints into the compass’ mirror and studies the target, needle, and guide line, finding the azimuth pointing 270˚ from true north.

  “Satisfied?” Samuel asks after a minute or two.

  “Well, we’re off by…”

  “We’re not lost,” Samuel growls, then turns and stalks away, as though he means to leave the other two behind. He never would, but it works, and soon they’re trotting along to catch up.

  “It’s not as though we can see the sun,” Molly says, a little out of breath. “It’s not as if we can see the mountains.”

  “I know the way to the station,” Samuel tells her. “That’s why Miss picked me, because I know the way.”

  “It pays to be sure.”

  “Fine, Molly. Now we’re sure. Shut up and walk.”

  “You don’t have to be such a bloody, self-righteous snit about it,” she tells Samuel.

  “Yes he does,” sneers Patrick Henry, and Samuel laughs and agrees with him.

  The going is slower than usual, mostly due to deep new washouts dividing many of the thoroughfares. Patrick Henry takes a bad tumble in the one bisecting Davies and Milton streets, where the dead city’s namesake waterway has jumped its banks and carved a steep ravine. But he doesn’t break or even sprain anything, only almost loses the revolver Miss has entrusted to him. Samuel and Molly pull him free of the mud and helped him back up to street level, Samuel admonishing him for being such a clumsy fool every step of the way. Patrick Henry doesn’t bother to say otherwise. The three sit together a few minutes with Molly, catching their breath and staring upstream at the wreckage that had once been Beeman’s Mercantile before the building slid into the washout.

  It’s afternoon before they reach the airship, and Samuel has begun to worry about getting back before their eight hours are up, before Miss writes them off for dead. Besides, with the dogs on the prowl, he knows from experience that every passing minute decreases their chances of not meeting up with a pack of the mongrels.

  “It’s enormous,” Molly says, gazing up at the crash, her voice tinged with awe. All three were too young to recall the days when the Count von Zepplin’s majestic airships plied the skies by the hundreds. And this was the first time that either Molly or Patrick Henry had actually seen a dirigible, other than a couple of pictures in one of Miss’ books.

  “It’s like a skeleton,” says Patrick Henry, and Samuel supposes it is, though the comparison has never before occurred to him. Once, almost a year ago, he’d crawled through the ruins of the late Professor Jeremiah Ogilvy’s museum on Kipling Street. He’d seen bones there, or stones in the shape of bones, and Miss had explained to him afterwards that they were the remains of wicked sea monsters that lived before Noah’s Flood and which were not permitted room on the Ark (he was polite and didn’t ask her why sea creatures had drowned in the deluge). The petrified bones had much the same appearance of the crushed and half-melted steel framework sprawling before them.

  Samuel points to the narrow vertical tear in what’s left of the gondola. It’s black as pitch beyond the tear. “The larder isn’t too far in, but it’s rough going. So, we’d best – ”

  “I’m not going in there,” declares Patrick Henry, interrupting him.

  “Hell’s bell’s you ain’t,” says Samuel, whirling about to face the other boy.

  “Aren’t,” Molly says so quietly they almost don’t hear her. “You aren’t going in there.”

  “You shut up, Molly, and yes he is most certainly does. I don’t care if he’s a damned yellow-bellied coward. there ain’t no way I can carry all the food we need out alone.”

  “I won’t go in there, Samuel.”

  Samuel shoves Patrick Henry with enough force that the younger boy almost loses his balance as falls to the tarmac.

  “You will, or I’ll kick your sorry ass to Perdition and back again.”

  “Then you do that, Samuel. ’Cause I won’t go in, no matter how hard to beat me, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “You slimy, piss-poor whoreson,” snarls Samuel between his teeth, and then he knocks Patrick Henry to the ground and gives him a sharp kick in the ribs.

  There’s a click, and Samuel turns his head to see Molly pointing her Colt at him. With both thumbs, she drawn back the hammer and cocked the gun, and has her right index finger on the trigger. The barrel gleams faintly in the dingy light of the day. Her hands are trembling, and she’s obviously having trouble holding the revolver level.

  “You leave him alone, Samuel. Don’t you dare kick him again. You step away from him, right this minute.”

  “Molly, you wouldn’t dare,” Samuel replies, narrowing his eyes, trying hard to seem as if he’s not the least bit afraid, even though his heart’s pounding in his chest. No one’s ever held a gun on him before.

  “Is this the day you want to find out if that’s for true, Samuel?” she asks him, and her hands shake a little less.

  Samuel turns away from her and stares down at Patrick Henry a moment. The boy’s curled into a fetal position, and is cradling the place where the kick landed.

  “Fine,” says Samuel. “If you’re lucky, maybe the dogs will find the both of you. That’d be better than if Miss hears about this, now wouldn’t it.”

  “You just don’t hit him no more.”

  “You just don’t hit him again,” Samuel says, and the act of correcting her makes him feel the smallest bit less scared of the gun. “You might be a slattern, but you don’t have to sound like one, Molly Peterson.”

  Patrick Henry coughs and squeaks out a few unintelligible words from behind his respirator.

  “May the dogs find you both,” Samuel says, because there aren’t many worse ways left to curse someone. He puts his back to the both of them and climbs into the dark gondola. It’ll take time for his eyes to adjust, and he leans against a wall and listens to Molly consoling Patrick Henry. Samuel grips the butt of his own Colt, tucked into his waistband.

  If I had another bullet, he thinks, but leaves it at that. Miss will take care of them, and oh, how he’ll gloat when the coward and the turncoat bitch get what’s coming to them. Unless, like he said, the dogs find them first. He thinks, Molly knows all about the dogs firsthand, then chuckles softly at his unintentional pun, and begins making his way cautiously, warily, through what’s left of the passengers’ observation deck.

  4.

  As has been said, Miss has told all her charges there’s no point dwelling on what was, but has been forever lost.

  “That time is never coming back,” she said, on the occasion Samuel ever asked her about how things were before the War. “We have to learn to live in this age, if we’re going to have any hope of survival.”

  “I only want to know why it happened,” he persisted. “Didn’t everyone have everything they wanted, everything they needed? What was there to fight over?”

  She smiled a sad sort of smile and tousled his hair. “Some folks had everything they needed, and a lot more besides. You might look up at the dirigibles, or see the brass and silver clockworks, or the steam rails, or go to a great city and wonder at the shining towers. You could do that, Samuel, and imagine the world was good. You could listen to the endless promises of scientists, engineers, and politicians and believe we lived in a Golden Age that would last forever and a day, where all men were free from want. But those men and women were arrogant, and we all swallowed their hubris and made it our own. Ever wonder why folks who never went near a foundry or flew an ‘thopter, people who never even got their hands dirty, used to wear goggles?”

  “No,” he told her, after trying very hard to figure out why they would have. Admittedly, it didn’t make much sense.

  “Because wearing goggles made us feel like we were more than onlookers, Samuel. It made us feel like we all had our shoulder to the wheel, that we’d all earned what we had. We wanted to believe there was finally e
nough for everyone, and everyone did, indeed, have everything they needed.”

  “But they didn’t?”

  “No, Samuel, they didn’t. Not by half. We didn’t talk about Africa, the East Indies, or the colonies elsewhere. They didn’t talk about the working conditions in the mines and factories, or the Red Indian reservations, the people who suffered and died so that a few of us could live our lives of plenty. Most of all, though, they didn’t talk about how nothing lasts forever – not coal, not wood, not oil or peat – and how one nation turns against another when it starts to run out of the resources it needs to power the engines of progress. They didn’t tell us about the weapons the Czar and America and Britain, China and Prussia and lots of other countries were building. Our leaders and scholars and journalists didn’t talk about these things, Samuel, and very few of the lucky people never bothered to ask why.”

  “So, we weren’t good people?”

  She stared at him silently for almost a full minute, and then she said, softly, “We were people, Samuel. And that’s as good an answer as any I can offer you,” she told him, then said they’d talked quite enough and sent him away to bed. He paused outside the room where the boys sleep and looked back. She was still sitting on the concrete bench, and had begun to weep quietly to herself.

  5.

  Lugging his bulging burlap bag loaded with cans and bottles back through the perilous gauntlet of Deck B, Samuel isn’t thinking about the conversation with Miss. The sweat stung his eyes, and his head ached from having bumped it hard against a sagging I-beam. His back aches, too, and he’s lost track of time in the darkness of the gondola. He isn’t thinking about much at all except getting back before their eight hours has passed, and how many they might have left. He has room to worry about that, and he has energy to fume about Molly Peterson and Patrick Henry Olmstead, the dirty cowards shirking their duty and leaving him to do all the hard work. He takes satisfaction in knowing what Miss will do to them back at the bunker, how they’ll go a day and a night without meals, how everyone will be forbidden to speak to them for a week. Miss doesn’t tolerate deadbeats and cowards.