Myrikal

by Holli Anderson

  “Myrikal! It’s so wonderful to see you. Come inside. The children will be thrilled to see you. They talk about you all the time.”

  “Thank you.” Myri stepped into the compound, closing the gate behind her. “How are the kids? Chansong? Dal? Marcus and Annie? Are they doing okay?”

  “They’re doing well. See for yourself.” She swept her arm in an arc toward three kids, running full-bore toward them.

  “Myrikal!” Dal reached her first, his long legs outpacing the others. He wrapped his arms around her waist in an exuberant hug. “I thought you forgot about us.”

  “Dal, you’ve grown. I guess I don’t have to ask if they’re feeding you enough.” Myri knelt to receive hugs from the two girls. “Where’s Marcus?”

  “He’ll be here in a sec,” Annie said. “He went to get his gun. He wants to show you something.” She rolled her eyes as only an unimpressed little sister can.

  Myri stood and looked across the large grassy compound. There he was, running toward her with a big grin spread across his young face. She waved.

  Much had transpired in the few days since she’d rescued Annie from the dog kennel William held her in. And rescued Marcus from whatever punishment Cascus had planned for him for attempting to steal a battery.

  Marcus slowed to a stop in front of her and gave her an awkward one-armed hug. “Hey, Myrikal. You kept your promise.” His eyes flicked up to hers before returning to stare at the ground.

  “Yeah.” She ruffled his hair. “I told you I would.”

  He shrugged. “People don’t always keep their promises.” He met her gaze, then, and smiled. “One of the dads here showed me how to use the gun you gave me. Wanna’ see?”

  “Of course I do.” Myri looked around. “Where do you practice?”

  “Anywhere, really. We have to save the bullets so I’ve just been practicing without them.” A tinge of pink touched his cheeks.

  “Let’s see it, then. Show me what you’ve learned.”

  Marcus started by telling her about the safety steps—don’t ever point the gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot, always treat it like it’s loaded and ready to go. He showed her how to click the safety on and off. How to clip the magazine into the grip and pop it out again with the push of a button. With a slight bit of difficulty, he pulled the slide back, showing her how to chamber a bullet, if there had been any in the magazine.

  The gun was big for his small hands, the tip of his index finger just resting on the trigger as he closed one eye and aimed toward the back wall. “You have to line up the front sight and the back sight on the target before you shoot,” he explained. He pulled the trigger and the slide closed on the empty chamber.

  “Looks like you have a great teacher. You might need to grow into this gun a bit before you can shoot with accuracy. Because of the way your finger rests on the trigger, I’m afraid you’ll pull up and out when you fire a real bullet.”

  “That’s what Larry said, too. He told me I should adjust my aim to make up for it.” Marcus’s eyes lit up. “He said we could spare three bullets during the next thunderstorm so I can fire it for reals.”

  “Why during a thunderstorm?” Myri asked.

  “He doesn’t want anyone outside of our clan to know about the gun. He said the thunder will hide the gunshots.”

  Myri nodded. “That’s smart.”

  Baby wiggled at her back, and popped his head up over her shoulder.

  Chansong clapped her hands together and pointed at the panther.

  “Oh, a kitty!” Annie exclaimed.

  Myri laughed and swung the backpack off her shoulder, laying it gently on the ground. She held Baby aloft. “Not exactly. He’s a black panther cub.” Her lips drew down into a frown. “Orphaned.”

  Eyes pleading with Myrikal, Chansong held her hands out then gestured in a petting motion.

  “He’s still pretty wild. I just found him two days ago. His teeth and claws aren’t super big, but they’re sharp.” Myri set the wriggling cub on the grass, keeping hold of the scruff of his neck.

  Chansong dropped to her knees. Myri was pretty sure the girl hadn’t heard a word she’d said. The girl held her hand out toward Baby and the heretofore ferocious little beast army-crawled to her and licked her little fingers. Within minutes, Baby’s head lay in Chansong’s lap, eyes half closed, purring as she stroked his fur.

  “So much for the wild beast I found in the forest.” Myrikal stepped back to watch the four kids shower the cub with affection.

  “What’s its name?” Annie asked.

  “His name is Baby.”

  She screwed up her tiny face with a look of consternation. “You know he isn’t going to stay little, right? He’s already bigger than our cat.”

  “Right,” Myri laughed. “From the look of his paws, I’d say he’s going to be quite large, in fact. But I like the name Baby.”

  Annie smiled. “Me, too.”

  “Uh-oh.” Chansong’s mom looked past the children, back toward the large building. “You’d better get your dog, Dal, before he sees Baby.”

  Dal jumped up and spun around, intercepting the large dog halfway across the compound. “Hey, Lobo.” He rubbed the dog’s ears and back. “Where you been? Out hunting? Let’s go get you some water.” Dal led the dog away, turning to wave. “See you later, Myri!”

  As she raised her arm to wave back, a large blast sounded nearby, outside the walls, but close enough to shake the ground where they stood. A plume of smoke rose into the air a block or so away. “Chansong, you’re in charge of Baby until I get back.”

  Myri ran toward the wall, gripped the edge with her hands and catapulted herself over the top. She hit the ground, running toward the screams.

  Flames rose from the smaller building that could have been a pizza restaurant in the time before the ‘quakes. The front of the building lay in a mess of jumbled bricks and broken glass. Flames shot out the opening. A soot-covered woman with burns to her hands and face stumbled toward the wreckage, stopping with a cry when the heat became too much to bear.

  Myri skidded to a stop in front of her. “Are there people in there?”

  The woman nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “My friends.”

  Arms covering her face, Myrikal jumped through the flames and into the crumbling building. Right away she realized it was too late for the first body she came to. Charred beyond recognition, there was no saving them. Coughing came from further back, so she made her way toward the sound, slapping at the flames that had taken hold of her jeans. A woman laid on her stomach behind a piece of the counter that still stood. Blood seeped from a wound on her head, but her back rose and fell with labored breaths.

  Myri knelt next to her, searching for another way out. She couldn’t carry this woman back through the flames. She spied a metal door at the back of the room. Myri lifted the woman and carried her over her shoulder. She tried the door with her free hand, but it wouldn’t budge, like someone had blocked it from the outside. Myri raised her foot and kicked it square in the middle. The door bowed at the center, cracks opening up at the edges near the doorframe. A couple more kicks and the door buckled in half, tearing free of its hinges and whatever had been blocking it from the outside.

  Most of the smoke and flames converged near the front of the building, so the only smoke in the back alley came from what the wind pushed over the rooftops. Myrikal made her way around, wanting to get to the lady out front, to ask if there were any more people inside. She rounded the corner of the building and stopped, nearly dropping the injured woman. Four similarly clad people stood back a safe distance from the burning building, one of them with an arm draped around the crying lady’s shoulders. Lightning bolt patches emblazoned the right shoulders of their uniforms.

  Crap. They were the last people Myrikal wanted to see. Especially the tall one. It was too late to do anything about it now, though. Branch had already seen her. The scowl on his face made that much clear.

  She straightened her
shoulders and readjusted the unconscious woman she carried. Attempting to keep a neutral expression on her face, Myrikal strode over to the group.

  “Hey, Myrikal.” Ya gave a slight bow.

  “Hi, Ya.”

  Branch refused to look her in the eyes. “You can put her down now. And leave. We have this under control.” He pulled a flare from his belt and shot it into the air.

  His words stung. The sparking hatred in his eyes was like a knife in her back. She swallowed down the rising bile in her throat and laid the woman in the street with a gentle swing of her arms. Not wanting to see similar looks in the eyes of the others, Myri turned and hurried away.

  She whipped her head around as something glinted off the light of the flames. It flew through the air right toward the small group she’d left standing in the street. Right toward Branch. Myrikal leaped, intercepting it mid-flight. She curled her body around the familiar metal object and crashed to the ground, rolling. The small bomb exploded.

  “Myri!”

  Branch’s voice echoed inside her head as she skidded to a stop on her right shoulder and hip. She blinked open her eyes, glaring light blinded one of them. Too bright. She touched the goggle lens on that side and found nothing but the frame and a few jagged remnants of the lens.

  “Go after him!” Branch yelled.

  His voice sounded distant, as if he stood at the end of a long, stone cavern. Myrikal, keeping her uncovered eye closed, glanced down at her shredded clothing. She almost expected to see blood even though she’d never bled before. No blood. Just shredded cloth and the metal fragments of the explosive device she’d been able to keep her body wrapped around.

  The shrapnel fell to the ground as Myrikal sat up. Branch dropped to his knees next to her. “Myri, are you okay?”

  His voice still sounded far away, yet he was right next to her. She tilted her head, slow with a response. “I… I think so.” She cupped her hand over the broken lens. “I broke my goggles.” She shook her head, trying to clear away the fuzziness.

  “Can you stand up?”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to her yet. Yeah. Stand up. That’s probably a good idea. She stood, looking around through her goggled eye. Something just happened that she should be responding to. She looked at Branch, his face reddened as he jerked his gaze away from her body to search an area across the street. She looked down. Oh, yeah. Shredded clothing. There were more holes in her shirt than actual material. It didn’t cover much. She liked that shirt, too.

  “The others ran after him.” Branch waved a hand in the direction he stared.

  “After who?”

  “After your dad.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Myri, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “My… my dad?” She closed both eyes and forced her mind to think. The bomb. Someone had thrown a bomb. She’d caught it. No wonder her clothes hung on her like threadbare rags. She opened her eyes, ignoring the brightness in the uncovered one. “My dad threw a bomb at you. Are you sure it was him?” She hadn’t seen who’d thrown it.

  “Yes, Myrikal. I’m sure it was him.” He sounded exasperated.

  In a flash, her mind snapped back together. She remembered Branch telling her to leave. Remembered his anger. “I should go help them.” She took off in the direction he’d pointed, not waiting for him to answer.

  She heard the struggle before catching sight of them. Her father was a great fighter, but he was no match for three DefCo team members. Team members she’d trained in hand-to-hand combat. Heck, he was barely a match for Ya, who really hadn’t needed her training in the first place. By the time she reached them, they had her father’s hands cuffed behind him. He cursed and spat blood onto Donna as she propelled him forward.

  “Myrikal,” he almost smiled. “Get these assholes off me.”

  “The assholes you just tried to blow up, you mean?” Myri asked.

  “You don’t understand, Myrikal. They’re trying to take over the city. They think they’re better than everyone else out here.”

  “Throwing explosives at people is a way to prove you’re ‘better’ than them?”

  His bloody face contorted into a hateful scowl. “Screw you, daughter! I should have known you wouldn’t help me.”

  “Yeah. You should have.” Myri rounded a corner back the way she’d come and stopped, her stomach lurching. Cascus stood next to Branch and the injured women from the burning building. She could smell his rotten odor from a half block away.

  “Myrikal,” Cascus said as she neared them. “I thought you’d left the city.”

  “I came back to tie up a few loose ends.”

  “Well, we have this little problem under control. You can leave now.” He narrowed his eyes at her, his true form undulating just beneath the surface. “For good this time.”

  One glance at Branch told her he agreed with his alien mentor. “I’ll leave when I want and return whenever I choose.” She jerked her head toward the three DefCo members dragging her dad across the street. “What are you planning to do with him?”

  “You’ll be happy to know that I took your thoughts on the death penalty to heart, dear Myrikal. We’ve come up with other ways to ensure compliance with our laws. Your father will be one of the first we try it out on. We won’t kill him. He may just wish we had.” Cascus’s lips turned up in a gruesome smile.

  “What…”

  “Don’t worry about it, Myri,” Branch interrupted. “You left us. You’ve already proven you don’t want to be a part of creating a better world. Just go.”

  “Yeah! Go!” Russ yelled. “You’re a worthless piece of junk.”

  Ya turned on him and punched up into his diaphragm, exploding the breath from his lungs. “Don’t talk to your daughter that way.”

  Myri gave Ya an appreciative nod then turned to Branch. “The score’s ten to one now, by the way. See you around.”

  Branch grunted in response as Myri turned and walked away.

  She returned to the repopulation compound just long enough to change her clothes and get Baby and her backpack. This time, she meant her goodbyes. She was never coming back to this place.

  The sunshine, unobscured by clouds for probably the first time in her life, warmed Myrikal’s skin. Was it always like this out here, days away from Manhattan? She and Baby had taken their time when they’d left. And why not? They had nowhere to be, no destination in mind. Myri made sure to stay near a water source, which were all blissfully cleaner than what she was used to.

  It had been a week, maybe more, since the bomb incident and the short reunion with her father. She’d tossed the useless goggles, determined to train her eyes to accommodate the brightness of daylight. They weren’t cooperating. Especially in the unaccustomed sunshine unfiltered by clouds. After an afternoon’s worth of squinting, eye-watering, and holding her hand up for shade, Myri fashioned a visor by weaving together some long grass. Alyssa would definitely have something smart-alecky to say if she’d seen it. But it helped. And her eyes were adjusting somewhat. That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t snatch up a pair of tinted goggles if one happened to become available, though.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate your company, Baby, but it’ll sure be nice to talk to a real person or two.” Myrikal stooped to examine a shoeprint in the soft earth. The semi worn trail they followed hinted that they neared a town of some sort. “Let’s go check things out.”

  Baby had stayed within a dozen feet or so of Myri while they traveled. She’d only carried him when his young legs tired out and only tied the rope to his neck the first couple of nights. They had officially become surrogate family to each other, and she no longer worried about him wandering off. He knew where his daily meals of fish came from.

  The trees and brush opened up to what had once been a small suburb. There were remnants of such all over the place, Myri had passed through or near many of them. The homes had all been in shambles, most of them overgrown heaps of wood and brick atop crumbling foundations. This one was different. The sou
nds of life—human life, not insects and small woodland creatures—tickled her ears.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she surveyed the area. Homes. Real homes. Someone—some people—had restored the homes here. Not just that, they’d built a town. A small town, one that Myri could take in almost all at once with just a slight turn of her head. But it was a town.

  Children’s laughter caught her attention and pulled her toward it. Right in the center of the town at least two-dozen children of all ages played outside a single-story building. A hand-painted sign hung neatly over the door—SCHOOL. Myri smiled. She’d never seen this many children gathered together. She didn’t even know if there were this many children in all of Manhattan. She watched the children play some sort of chasing game, closely watched by three adults. One of the kids stopped, pointed at Myrikal, and yelled, “Stranger!”

  The three adults—two females and one male—pivoted in her direction, putting themselves between her and the children. Their faces showed concern and alertness, but not anger, thankfully.

  Myri waved. “Hi?”

  The older of the three, a female that looked to be about Russ’s age, told the others to take the children inside and get started on their next lessons. She turned to Myri and smiled as she walked over to her. “Hello. My name is Katherine. And who might you be? We don’t often get visitors here.”

  “I’m Myrikal. You can call me Myri if you want. I’m sorry.” She looked toward the school. “I didn’t mean to scare them.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you scared them. They’ve been taught to alert us and each other of any strangers in town. It happens so rarely, they find newcomers fascinating.” She inhaled deeply and put her hands on her hips. “So, what does bring you here, Myrikal?”

  How should she answer that question? “Just passing through, I guess. Exploring.” Running away from my past.

  Nodding, Katherine said, “Miracle, huh? Your parents must have really wanted you. Loved you.”