Jimmy: Ow! Fuck!
Oh Snowman, do not kick. It will hurt your foot. Several of them begin to purr, making a noise like a kitchen mixer.
Ren, calling for help: Toby! Toby! Hey! Let go of her!
Toby looks over, across the fire: Amanda has disappeared in a flickering thicket of naked male limbs and backs. Ren throws herself into the sprawl and is quickly submerged.
Toby: Wait! Don’t … Stop that! What should she do? This is a major cultural misunderstanding. If only she had a pail of cold water!
Muffled cries. Toby rushes to help, but then:
One of the Painballers: Hey you! Over here!
These ones smell very bad. They smell like dirty blood. Where is the blood?
What is this? This is a rope. Why are they tied up with a rope?
Snowman showed us rope before, when he lived in a tree. Rope is for making his house. Oh Snowman, why is the rope tied to these men?
This rope is hurting these ones. We must take it away.
A Painballer: Yeah, that’s right. We’re in fucking agony. (Groans.)
Toby: Don’t touch them, they’ll …
The second Painballer: Fucking hurry up, Blueballs, before that old bitch …
Toby: No! Don’t untie … Those men will …
But it was already too late. Who knew the Crakers could be so quick with knots?
Procession
The two men were gone into the darkness, leaving behind them a snarl of rope and a scattering of embers. Idiot, Toby thought. You should have been merciless. Bashed their heads in with a rock, slit their throats with your knife, not even wasted any bullets on them. You were a dimwit, and your failure to act verges on criminal negligence.
It was hard to see – the fire was fading – but she made a quick inventory: at least her rifle was still there, a small mercy. But the Painballer spraygun was missing. Pinhead, she told herself. So much for your Saint Julian and the loving kindness of the universe.
Amanda and Ren were clinging to each other and crying, with several of the beautiful Craker women stroking them anxiously. Jimmy had toppled over and was talking to a bed of coals. The sooner they could all get back to the MaddAddam cobb house, the better, because they were sitting ducks out here in the dark. The Painballers might come back for the remaining weapons, and if that happened it was already clear to Toby that these Crakers would be no help. Why did you hit me? Crake will be angry! He will send a thunder! If she downed a Painballer, the Crakers would throw themselves between her and the finishing shot. Oh, you have made bang, a man fell down, there is a hole in him, blood is coming out! He is hurt, we must help him!
But even if the Painballers held off for the moment, there were other predators in the forest. The bobkittens, the wolvogs, the liobams; worse, the enormous feral pigs. And now, with the people gone from the cities and roads, who knew how soon the bears would begin to come down from the north?
“We need to go now,” she told the Crakers. Several heads turned, several sets of green eyes were looking at her. “Snowman must come with us.”
The Crakers all started talking at once. “Snowman must stay with us! We must put Snowman back into his tree.” “That is what he likes, he likes a tree.” “Yes, only he can talk with Crake.” “Only he can tell the words of Crake, about the Egg.” “About the chaos.” “About Oryx, who made the animals.” “About how Crake made the chaos go away.” “Good, kind Crake.” They began singing.
“We need to get medicine,” said Toby desperately. “Otherwise, Jimmy – otherwise, Snowman might die.” Blank stares. Did they even understand what dying was?
“What is a Jimmy?” Puzzled frowns.
She’d made an error: wrong name. “Jimmy is another name for Snowman.”
“Why?” “Why is it another name?” “What does a Jimmy mean?” This seemed to interest them much more than death. “Is it the pink skin on Snowman?” “I want a Jimmy too!” This last from a small boy.
How to explain? “Jimmy is a name. Snowman has two names.”
“His name is Snowman-the-Jimmy?”
“Yes,” said Toby, because it was now.
“Snowman-the-Jimmy, Snowman-the-Jimmy,” they repeated to one another.
“Why are there two?” one asked, but the others had switched their attention to the next bewildering word. “What is medicine?”
“Medicine is something to help Snowman-the-Jimmy get better,” she ventured. Smiles: they liked that idea.
“Then we will come too,” said the one who seemed in charge – a tall, brownish-yellow man with a Roman nose. “We will carry Snowman-the-Jimmy.”
Two of the Craker men lifted Jimmy easily. Toby was alarmed by his eyes: by the thin slits of white shining between his lids. “Flying,” he said as the Crakers swung him into the air.
Toby found Jimmy’s spraygun and gave it to Ren to carry, clicking the safety on first: the girl didn’t know how to use the thing – why would she? – but it would be sure to come in handy later on.
She’d assumed that only the two Craker volunteers would come back to the cobb house, but the whole crowd tagged along, children included. They all wished to be close to Snowman. The men took turns carrying him; the rest held their torches high, singing from time to time in their eerie waterglass voices.
Four of the women walked with Ren and Amanda, patting them and touching their arms or hands. “Oryx will take care of you,” they said to Amanda.
“Don’t let any of those blue dicks fucking touch her again,” said Ren to them fiercely.
“What is blue dicks?” they asked, bewildered. “What is fucking touch?”
“Just don’t, or else,” said Ren. “Or it’s trouble!”
“Oryx will make her happy,” said the women, though they sounded unsure. “What is trouble?”
“I’m okay,” said Amanda faintly to Ren. “What about you?”
“You are not fucking okay! Let’s just get you back to where the MaddAddams are,” said Ren. “They’ve got beds, and a water pump, and everything. We can clean you up. Jimmy too.”
“Jimmy?” said Amanda. “That’s Jimmy? I thought he’d be dead, like everyone else.”
“Yeah, so did I. But a lot of people aren’t. Well, some people. Zeb’s not, and Rebecca, and you and me, and Toby, and …”
“Where did those two guys go?” said Amanda. “The Painballers. I should’ve brained them when I had the chance.” She laughed a little, blowing off pain in her old pleebrat way. “How far is it?” she said.
“They can carry you,” said Ren.
“No. I’m fine.”
Moths fluttered around the torches, overhead leaves riffled in the night breeze. How long did they walk? To Toby it seemed like hours, but time is unclear in moonlight. They were heading west, through the Heritage Park; behind them the sound of the waves receded. Though there was a path, she was unsure of the way, but the Crakers appeared to know where they were going.
She listened for sounds, off among the trees – a footfall, a stick cracking, a grunt – keeping herself to the rear of the procession, her rifle at the ready. There was a croaking, a chirp or two: some amphibian, a night bird stirring. She was conscious of the darkness at her back: her shadow stretched huge, blending with the deeper shadows behind.
Poppy
Finally they reached the cobb-house enclave. A single light bulb was burning in the yard; behind the barrier fence, Crozier and Manatee and Tamaraw were standing sentry with their sprayguns, wearing battery-run headlamps gleaned from a bike shop.
Ren ran forward. “It’s us!” she called. “It’s okay! We found Amanda!”
Crozier’s headlamp bobbed as he opened the gate. “Way to go!” he shouted.
“Great! I’ll tell the others!” said Tamaraw. She hurried off to the main building.
“Croze! We did it!” Ren said. She threw her arms around him, dropping the spraygun she’d been carrying, and he lifted her, twirled her around, and kissed her. Then he set her down.
“I thought they’d kill us!” she said. “Them, the two … But you should’ve seen Toby! She was so badass! She had her old gun, and then we hit them with rocks, and then we tied them up, but then …”
“Wow,” said Manatee, surveying the Crakers who were crowding in through the gate, talking among themselves. “It’s the Paradice dome circus.”
“So these are them, right?” said Crozier. “The creepo naked people Crake made? The ones who live down by the shore?”
“I don’t think you should call them creepo,” said Ren. “They can hear you.”
“It wasn’t only Crake,” said Manatee. “All of us worked on them at the Paradice Project. Me, Swift Fox, Ivory Bill …”
“Why’d they come with you?” said Crozier. “What do they want?”
“They’re only trying to help,” said Toby. Suddenly she was very tired; all she wanted to do was stumble into her cubicle and conk out. “Has anyone else been here?” Zeb had left the cobb house at the same time she did, on a search for Adam One and any of the God’s Gardeners who might have survived. She wanted to know if he’d returned, but she didn’t want to be obvious about it: pining was whining, as the Gardeners used to say, and she’d never worn her heart anywhere near her sleeve.
“Only those pigs again,” said Crozier. “Trying to dig under the garden fence. We shone the lights on them and they ran off. They know what a spraygun is.”
“Ever since we turned a couple of them into bacon,” said Manatee. “Frankenbacon, considering they’re splices. I still feel kind of weird about eating them. They’ve got human neocortex tissue.”
“I hope Crake’s Frankenpeople aren’t moving in with us,” said a blond woman who’d come out of the main cobb building with Tamaraw. Toby recognized her from the brief time she’d spent at the cobb house before her search for Amanda: Swift Fox. She must have been over thirty, but she was wearing what looked like a twelve-year-old’s ruffle-edged nightie. Now where had she picked that up? Toby wondered. Some looted HottTottsTogs or Hundred-Dollar Store?
“You must be exhausted,” Tamaraw said to Toby.
“I don’t know why you brought them with you,” said Swift Fox. “There’s too many of them. We can’t feed them.”
“We won’t have to,” said Manatee. “They eat leaves, remember? That’s how Crake designed them. So they’d never need agriculture.”
“Right,” said Swift Fox. “You worked on that module. Me, I did the brains. The frontal lobes, the sensory-input modifications. I tried to make them less boring, but Crake wanted no aggression, no jokes even. They’re walking potatoes.”
“They’re really nice,” said Ren. “Anyway, the women are.”
“I suppose the males wanted to mate with you; they’ll do that. Just don’t make me talk to them,” said Swift Fox. “I’m going back to bed. Night all, have fun with the vegetables.” She yawned and stretched, then sauntered slowly away.
“Why’s she so crabby?” said Manatee. “She’s been like that all day.”
“Hormones is my guess,” said Crozier. “Check out the nightie, though.”
“Too small on her,” said Manatee.
“You noticed,” said Crozier.
“Maybe she has other reasons for being crabby,” said Ren. “Women sometimes do, you know.”
“Sorry,” said Crozier, putting his arm around her.
Four of the Craker men detached themselves from the group and began to follow Swift Fox, blue penises waving back and forth. Somewhere they’d picked more flowers; they were starting to sing.
“No!” said Toby sharply, as if to dogs. “Stay here! With Snowman-the-Jimmy!” How to make it clear to them that, even with the aid of floral display and serenading and penis-wagging, they couldn’t just pile on to any young non-Craker woman who smelled available to them? But they’d already disappeared around the corner of the main house.
The two Craker carriers lowered Jimmy down. He slumped limply against their knees. “Where will Snowman-the-Jimmy be?” they asked. “Where can we purr for him?”
“He’ll need to be in a room by himself,” said Toby. “We’ll find a bed for him, and then I’ll get the medicine.”
“We will come with you,” they said. “We will purr.” They picked Jimmy up again, making a chair for him with their arms. The others crowded around.
“Not all of you,” said Toby. “He needs to be quiet.”
“He can have Croze’s room,” said Ren. “Can’t he, Croze?”
“Who’s that?” said Crozier, peering at Jimmy, whose head was lolling to one side, who was drooling into his beard, who was scratching fitfully at himself with one filthy hand through the pink fabric of the top-to-toe, and who noticeably stank. “Where’d you drag him in from? Why’s he wearing pink? He looks like a fucking ballerina!”
“It’s Jimmy,” said Ren. “Remember, I told you? My old boyfriend?”
“The one who messed you over? From high school? That child molester?”
“Don’t be like that,” said Ren. “I wasn’t really a child. He’s got a fever.”
“Don’t go, don’t go,” said Jimmy. “Come back to the tree!”
“You’re sticking up for him? After how he dumped you?”
“Yeah, right, but he’s kind of a hero now,” said Ren. “He helped save Amanda. He almost, you know, died.”
“Amanda,” said Croze. “I don’t see her. Where is she?”
“She’s over here,” said Ren, pointing to the group of Craker women surrounding Amanda, stroking her and purring gently. They moved aside to let Ren into their circle.
“That’s Amanda?” said Crozier. “No shit! She looks like …”
“Don’t say it,” said Ren, putting her arms around Amanda. “She’ll look a lot better tomorrow. Or next week, anyway.” Amanda started to cry.
“She’s gone,” said Jimmy. “She flew away. Pigoons.”
“Cripes,” said Crozier. “This is fucking weird.”
“Croze, everything is fucking weird,” said Ren.
“Okay, right, I’m sorry. I’m almost off sentry. Let’s …”
“I think I should help Toby,” said Ren. “At this moment.”
“Looks like I sleep on the ground, since that fuckwit’s tagged my bed,” Croze said to Manatee.
“Please grow up,” said Ren.
That’s all we need, thought Toby. Love’s young squabbles.
They carried Jimmy into Croze’s cubicle and laid him down on the bed. Toby asked two Craker women and Ren to aim the flashlights she’d got from the kitchen. Then she found her medical materials, on the shelf where she’d left them before setting off to find Amanda.
She did all she could for Jimmy: a sponge bath to get off the worst of the dirt; honey applied to the superficial cuts; mushroom elixir for the infection. Then Poppy and Willow, for the pain and for a restful sleep. And the small grey maggots, applied to the foot wound to nibble off the infected flesh. Judging from the smell, the maggots were just in time.
“What are those?” said one of the two Craker women, the tall one. “Why do you put those little animals on Snowman-the-Jimmy? Are they eating him?”
“It tickles,” said Jimmy. His eyes were half open; the Poppy was taking effect.
“Oryx sent them,” said Toby. That seemed to be a good answer, because they smiled. “They are called maggots,” she continued. “They are eating the pain.”
“What does the pain taste like, Oh Toby?”
“Should we eat the pain too?”
“If we ate the pain, that would help Snowman-the-Jimmy.”
“The pain smells very bad. Does it taste good?”
She should avoid metaphors. “The pain tastes good only to the maggots,” she said. “No. You should not eat the pain.”
“Will he be okay?” Ren said. “Has he got gangrene?”
“I hope not,” said Toby. The two Craker women placed their hand
s on him and began to purr.
“Falling,” said Jimmy. “Butterfly. She’s gone.”
Ren bent over him, brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Go to sleep, Jimmy,” she said. “We love you.”
Cobb House
Morning
Toby dreams that she’s in her little single bed, at home. Her stuffed lion is on the pillow beside her, and her big shaggy bear that plays a tune. Her antique piggy bank is on her desk, and the tablet she uses for her homework, and her felt-tip crayons, and her daisy-skinned cellphone. From the kitchen comes the sound of her mother’s voice, calling; her father, answering; the smell of eggs frying.
Inside this dream, she’s dreaming of animals. One is a pig, though six-legged; another is cat-like, with compound eyes like a fly. There’s a bear as well, but it has hooves. These animals are neither hostile nor friendly. Now the city outside is on fire, she can smell it; fear fills the air. Gone, gone, says a voice, like a bell tolling. One by one the animals come towards her and begin to lick her with their warm, raspy tongues.
At the edge of sleep, she gropes towards the retreating dream: the burning city, the messengers sent to warn her. That the world has been changed utterly; that the familiar is long dead; that everything she used to love has been swept away.
As Adam One used to say, The fate of Sodom is fast approaching. Suppress regret. Avoid the pillar of salt. Don’t look back.
She wakes to find a Mo’Hair licking her leg: a red-head, its long human hair braided into pigtails, each with a string bow: some sentimentalist among the MaddAddamites has been at work. It must have got out of the pen where they’re keeping them.
“Move it,” she says to it, shoving it gently with her foot. It gives her a look of addled reproach – they’re none too bright, the Mo’Hairs – and clatters out through the doorway. We could use some doors around here, she thinks.
The morning light is filtering in through the piece of cloth that’s been hung over the window in a futile attempt to keep out the mosquitoes. If only they could find some screens! But they’d have to install window frames because the cobb house wasn’t built to be lived in: it had been a parkette staging pavilion for fairs and parties, and they’re squatting in it now because it’s safe. It’s away from the urban rubble – the deserted streets and random electrical fires and the buried rivers that are welling up now that the pumps have failed. No collapsing building can fall down on it, and as it’s only one storey high, it’s unlikely to fall down on itself.
The MaddAddam Trilogy Page 71
