“Huh? What?” asked the marauder. “Aww, dammit.”
The wheels squeaked like an army of tiny songbirds furious at the world. She rocked to her left when he stepped on the brake and brought the buggy to a stop. Her mind leapt from ‘run like hell right now’ to ‘wait and see what he does’ to panic. Boots crunching on the pavement outside snapped her out of her indecision. She gazed up at the leather, her jaw clenching in determination at the shadow of a man falling on it from outside.
At the clatter of a buckle, she drew the pistol off her hip and flicked the safety off.
He opened the flaps and found himself staring at a gun. “Ooh. I got me a sweet little girl! Where’d you come from?”
Bang!
The brass flew from the side of the pistol, bounced off a metal spar, and glanced off her shoulder. Her shot snapped the man’s head back, a thin stream of blood spurting from where the bullet struck an inch above his left eye. His arms flailed out to the side as he careened over backward. He collapsed to the pavement and didn’t move.
Wisp ducked out the triangular opening and stepped over the marauder’s body to the road beyond, leaving two distinct footprints in dust on his chest armor. She nodded in satisfaction and recovered her rifle from the buggy.
Without further ceremony, she ran into the nearest alley in search of a hiding spot. More marauders might come to investigate the gunshot, though this one’s utter lack of reaction to having a gun in his face made her wonder if they might blame thunder for the noise. Maybe they would have no idea what the sound was? Her head hurt from the engine roar, and breathing the fumes left her woozy. Even if she didn’t have to hide from curious marauders, she wanted to sit down and not move for a while anyway. A few alleys away, she found a nice sheltered spot behind a big metal box covered in fallen chunks of skyscraper. After crawling into the shadowed space, she lay on her side and focused on breathing and not wanting to feel so spinny-headed.
Her head cleared some time later, without any angry shouts from the street. Deciding herself safe for the moment, she emerged from the little cave and spent a few minutes walking around to stretch her legs before heading back to the alley mouth.
This ruin, other than having much shorter buildings, looked quite similar to the other one. Cracked walls, missing windows, cars flat like giants had stepped on them, and debris lay strewn everywhere. The marauder had been driving down a relatively clear road with fewer obstructions than other paths in sight.
Rifle up and ready, Wisp huddled near the buildings on the right side of the street and advanced in a series of dashes and pauses. She hid behind small stairways or big trashcans, peering around in search of danger before springing up and running twenty or thirty feet to another hiding place. Three cross-streets deep, the road ahead lay clogged with the smashed remnants of buses and trucks, as well as the upper four floors of a mini skyscraper that had come apart in the middle. The blockage in the road stood taller than some of the intact buildings elsewhere in the ruin.
Well, I’m not going that way.
She ran left across the street, pressed herself against the wall of a red brick building, and peered around the corner. Two blocks away, marauders walked back and forth across the top of a wall made from corrugated steel plates, car hoods, and random squiggles of barbwire. Their barricade covered the span of a four-lane road, meeting flush to a squarish six-story building that suffered less damage than the surroundings and had a fortress-like appearance. Spray-painted skulls and words like ‘death,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘party’ adorned the wall. Several other writings existed, but the exaggerated letters made them unreadable.
Emerging from that corner and trying to walk down the street would surely get her seen, since the marauders pacing around atop the wall had a clear view. She considered shooting them from where she crouched, but she had no idea how many marauders might be inside. Even if they didn’t understand guns, monsters dropping dead off the wall would be obvious. Better to find Dad and ask him what to do.
Wisp backed away from the corner and retreated to the nearest cross street. Far too much debris packed it to allow a buggy to go by, but maybe the marauders didn’t watch it because of that. She shouldered the rifle to free her hands, then climbed up to squat atop a chunk of former building, surveying the spread of ruin in front of her. Once a path formed in her mind, she stretched one leg across a gap to the trunk of a flattened car. As soon as her toes touched metal, she leapt across, waving her arms for balance. At the other end of the car, she scaled another concrete waterfall, grabbing bits of metal bar for support and trying to step on either flat spaces or soft dust. The long hill of rubble brought her to the broken-out windows of a bus.
Wisp grabbed on to the metal above the opening and slipped her legs through first, sitting on the bottom edge with her feet on a soft, padded chair coated in sand. She lowered herself inside, moving from standing on the double-seat to the aisle, and encountered the unusual sensation of having a rubber mat underfoot. It distracted her for a few seconds of shifting her weight back and forth, exploring the sponginess. Careful not to step on any of the human bones littering the floor, she advanced toward where a large section of the floor had fallen out. Inches from the edge, she stopped and peered down a giant hole that yawned into a cavern deep enough to be below street level. All sorts of pipes jutted from the walls at various angles, but nothing flowed from them. A huge gap in the roof rimmed with shredded, buckled metal gave her a clear view of the sky and ruined high-rises. She imagined a huge chunk of broken building falling onto this giant car-box like a bullet hitting a marauder―in one side, out the other, and smashing all the way down into the chamber below the street.
After looking around at seats, overhead rails, and the still-intact front end of the huge vehicle, she climbed up on a seat and grabbed a small black strap. With half her weight hanging by her arms, toes struggling for purchase on seats or metal railings, she swung herself strap-by-strap across the hole, until she clung to the back of the big seat behind the steering wheel. Only a short ledge of intact floor separated her from the drop-off into the cavern, and it wobbled from even her slight weight.
A faint whine of fear leaked from her nose as she tiptoed around the seat and climbed out the broken front window. Cracks and other small holes riddled the street ahead, all opening to the same underground space. Numerous ‘islands’ of paving that could fall into the earth at any time looked like the wrong way to go. She cringed, peering back at the bus, not really wanting to go that way either. Dead cars and large chunks of concrete lay scattered about the smashed roadway, so she hoped her little self wouldn’t be the last little bit of weight that made any of the slabs fall in.
“Mother, please protect me,” mumbled Wisp.
She eased herself forward, testing the ground with her toes as though she tried to walk on the brittle surface of a frozen pond. The hunk of pavement shifted under her. Cringing, she crept to the end and stepped over a four-inch wide gap to the next ‘island.’ That one didn’t move at all, which let her breathe again. Slab by slab, she made her way along until she’d left the cracked stretch behind.
“Whew.”
Men’s laughter came from her right.
She gasped and spun, fumbling to pull the rifle from her shoulders, but found herself staring at a tall barricade covered in spray paint. The echo of the marauders had to have come from behind it, and they hadn’t been laughing at her. She eased the rifle back on the strap, and approached the wall. Haphazard construction resulted in plenty of spots to grab or put her feet, though she avoided anything too rusty on her climb up to the top.
Inches from the edge, she stepped sideways onto a slightly higher foothold, but crouched to keep her face hidden. Since none of the marauders inside sounded anywhere nearby, she eased herself up and peeked over the top at a narrow walkway of corrugated plates under her nose. Patches of metal grating filled in here and there, but the elevated path appeared to go all the way around the inside of the wall. Marauder
s could come wandering along right in front of her, but at the moment, none stood anywhere close enough to spot her face sticking up past the edge. She glanced to her right at the front gate she decided not to approach. Three men in brown leather armor continued pacing back and forth above the huge metal doors. Had she stayed hidden in the buggy, it would’ve come in there―straight into a big mess for her.
The marauders had walled off an intersection between two four-lane roads, plus about thirty yards down one of the streets. Several small cabins made of scrap metal occupied the end farthest from the intersection. Where the two streets crossed, they’d built a square barrier of metal fencing covered in spikes, but only about as tall as a man’s belt. Blood had splattered all over the road inside the square, suggesting a lot of fighting happened inside it.
Based on where the sun hung overhead, she figured the main gate lay on the east face of the marauder’s camp, and the extension full of metal cabins occupied the road leading north away from the intersection. She perched on the south wall.
Close to the ‘dying square,’ a rack held a large assortment of swords, big hammers, clubs, and axes. The rest of the space around the arena contained a half-dozen buggies, five more frames for buggies that had either fallen apart or hadn’t been finished yet, and an array of tires, bottles, hoses, and giant blue plastic cans. Below her to the right along the south wall lay a swath of worktables where three men and two women in marauder armor worked with tools. They seemed to be fiddling with small engines like the one that gave her a headache.
She fixated on the biggest freestanding cabin all the way in the back of the extension down the road, annoyingly enough, directly opposite her current position. Something about it seemed important, but a large man also stood guard by a concrete staircase leading into one of the old-city buildings on the left side of that area.
The buzzing wail of a buggy came out of the distance, growing louder. Feeling somewhat safe, she decided to hold still and watch. Marauders ran to the wall on the right, dragging the two giant doors open a moment or two before a buggy appeared at the corner in the distance and rolled down the street into the compound. One man drove, another marauder stood on the back, holding on to the top of the triangular frame around the storage area. The buggy circled the death square once and parked by the line of other buggies.
As soon as the engine cut out, the screams of a woman became clear.
The marauder on the back hopped off. A coiled chain hanging from his hip with a fist-sized spiked metal ball jangled as he twisted side to side, stretching. The driver got out and walked around to him, and they opened the leather flaps. Inside, a dark-haired woman in tattered rags curled in a ball, her hands behind her back and her ankles tied.
Their captive shrieked and screamed, writhing and struggling at the ropes while begging them to let her go. The men hauled her out of the buggy and swung her around, showing her off to the rest of the marauders. Some cheered, including one of the armored women. The bigger man with the spiked-ball chain tossed her over his shoulder the way Dad carried deer home from the hunt. He crossed to the other side of the compound and went up the concrete stairs. The slam of a heavy door cut off her screams.
Wisp lost all interest in the big metal cabin, and glared at where they took that woman.
That’s where Dad is… If he’s here, he’ll be in that place.
She examined the building, an unassuming grey five-story without any writing on the walls or any signs. After noting it as the third building from the corner on the far side of the intersection, she climbed back down to the street and flexed her hands to ease the cramping from clinging to scrap metal for so long.
A relatively debris-free road led from where she stood to the next cross street. She hurried to the corner, circling around the outside of the compound at a light jog. Ducking fallen light posts and crawling through a maze of stacked cars, she made her way along in the shadow of the scrap metal barricade. When she reached the four-lane road outside the compound’s west wall, she ducked into a dark gap beneath a crashed car that had run up on top of another vehicle. From that hiding place, she peered out, glancing to her right at the wall of rusty, mismatched panels, and left at a long swath of debris packing the road. Ancient lampposts had melted; as far as she could see, pale shadows of people adorned the walls of old buildings―ghosts frozen in time at the instant of a Fire Dragon’s wrath. Voices inside the compound discussed if the ‘new capture’ would go to the farm or be given to one of the men as a pet. Others complained about something called a ‘still’ not working, which resulted in them running low on moonshine.
Wisp peered up at the late-afternoon sky. How can they run out of moon shine?
A throaty, scratchy female voice said, “Still works just fine. Piston drinks it all ’stead of feedin’ it to the buggies.”
Marauders erupted in laughter.
After making sure no one lurked atop the wall that could see her, she zipped out from her hiding place and sprinted across the four-lane road into the shadows of the next block. Three buildings in from the corner, she stopped and peered up at a wall covered in regular, small windows. Some had curtains, boards blocked off others, and none had any glass left. Spiked metal plates covered every window on the first floor. Wisp stood in the shelter of ancient buildings, hearing but not feeling the wind, and let all the air out of her lungs. She couldn’t remember ever being outdoors in a place with no breeze at all, and it made this ruin all the eerier.
This is where Dad is.
She pulled out the Mother Twig, but didn’t release it to dangle. What would she do if it didn’t point at this building in front of her? She’d seen them carry a captive into it. This had to be where they took him. Why didn’t she trust that the twig would point her here?
I know this is the place.
Shivering, she relaxed her fingers and let the twig drop. It barely rotated at all, still pointing straight forward as she’d been holding it.
Yes!
She packed the Mother Twig back in the side pocket and zippered it closed.
Okay… now how do I get inside? I can’t use the front door.
A small chain-link fence blocked off a channel between the building and its neighbor. That didn’t look promising, as it would take her right into the compound by the scrap metal cabins. She started to get angry, but caught herself.
Stay calm. Think.
Metal porches jutted out of the building inside that alley, one at each story, connected by narrow staircases. A ladder at the lower one appeared broken, as it didn’t go anywhere near enough to the ground to reach. She looked from it to the fence, to the wall of stone blocks. Inch-deep channels separated the huge, rectangular stones, gaps big enough for a girl’s fingers and toes.
Got it.
As she did at the settlement with the green strips tied to the fence, she stuck her feet in the holes of the chain link, grabbed on, and pulled herself up. Rather than go over it, she clung to the edge of the building for balance and pivoted so she could stand on the pipe running along the top of the fence. Gingerly, she slid the toes of her left foot into a gap between stones and tested putting her weight on them before committing to the climb. Once sure she could hold on to the wall, she clung like a spider to the side of the building and scaled up to the second story, then shimmied to her left until she got a hand on the metal porch hanging from the side. Not allowing even a second for thought, (so she didn’t chicken out) Wisp shoved off the wall and threw herself at the railing. She caught on, got a leg up, and swung herself over to stand on the grating. The whole porch clattered under her weight, evidently not too secure in its attachment to the building.
“What was that?”
A man’s voice echoed in the gap between buildings, probably the marauder guarding the door by the little concrete stairway. Wisp jumped in the nearest unblocked window before he could peek down the alley and spot her. She landed in a dim room with moldy walls and the decaying remains of a carpet. She slung the rifle
off her shoulder into a ready grip, gazing around at old furniture, a bookshelf, and a TV about half the size of the one she ‘watched’ before. Despite plenty of shadows, no Tree Walkers came out of the darkness for her. Still, she trembled. If any marauders spotted her, she’d have to send them to the Other Place before they could cry out. A gunshot, these monsters might not recognize. A marauder yelling would attract more. After swallowing hard, she forced herself to creep forward, constantly gazing left and right in case something tried to jump out at her.
This must have been someone’s cabin.
Of two ways out of this room, one door and one hallway, she chose the door.
It opened without protest, letting her into a narrow corridor with multiple, identical doors on both sides. Undisturbed dust covered the dark hardwood floor.
They don’t go up this high… She left a trail of footprints as she walked, pausing to stick her head into one door after the next at old, empty dwellings. This building confused her. As best she could tell, the ancients had built a whole bunch of small cabins and stacked them on top of each other. How many people had all tried to live in the same city for them to have done that?
A muted woman’s scream came from below, loudest near a wooden railing all the way at the end of the hall. Wisp hurried forward, peering over the banister down a staircase, also coated in dust. The first floor looked dark, most likely because all the ground level windows had metal plates over them.
She made her way down the creaky stairs, following the screaming. Sudden heavy footsteps coming from a side corridor sent her racing into a room on the right. She pushed the door closed, fighting her urge to slam it. A clink came from the pan in her pack when she leaned back against the door as if to hold it closed, toes clutching at the floor. She gasped for breath, making as little noise as possible while gazing out at the room in front of her. Twenty or more crude mattresses lay scattered about a room with no other furniture except metal pails here and there, and a rickety table with cans of various sizes.
The Forest Beyond the Earth Page 22
