by Jon Sauve
Carlene was inside, floating in the middle of the room, spinning slowly, her face shield at full tint. Her two air tanks were detached and drifting some distance away.
Russ went to her, all the pain of his loss clearing his mind, and took one of his own tanks off.
“…put her in the basement, and waited,” said the voice that sounded like Augie. “Waited for them to arrive. But it was too late…”
Russ attached the tank to her, reached under a flap on her back to the emergency controls. There were air stores built into the suit, small ones. She might have had air to breathe up until moments ago. He dialed the oxygen up a little, increased the pressure. The emergency controls had warning lights, and none of them went off. It meant, at least, that the suit itself was in working order.
Unsure whether or not she was breathing or already dead, Russ pulled her into the street and toward the Apollonia.
The airlock was open. He brought her in, shut it, and manually pressurized. He flattened out her oxygen level, then took off both of their helmets.
He bent low over her, putting his ear to her mouth. The air in the helmet always made his ears sensitive. He felt a breath. He stood and got their suits off as fast as he could.
At crew quarters, he drew four cots together, draped four blankets over them for cushion, then put her on with the last blanket over top. He ran to the cockpit and increased the warmth and oxygen level of the room she was in. Then he sat down in Max’s chair and fumbled about for a while.
He finally found the landing controls and, after consulting the pilot’s guide built into the ship computer, he detached from the stretch and watched it fall away beneath him.
“Come in,” he said into the radio. “This is the Apollonia, communications and defense officer Russ Kallidy speaking and I don’t care who’s listening, just answer.”
“Heard, Apollonia, this is GEP headquarters,” a blessed voice replied. Clear and crisp. “We’ve had cause for alarm and have already dispatched rescue ships from Triple P. Please respond.”
“Keep them coming,” Russ said. “Three of my crew are gone and one is critical. The faster they can get here, the better.”
“Acknowledged. They are already flying at urgent speed. How are you, Mr. Kallidy?”
“In one piece. Got all my fingers and all my teeth.” Russ sat back with a sigh. “Should I… should I turn on a beacon, or anything?”
“Your ship already has for you, Mr. Kallidy. Your rescuers know where you are, and they should be there soon.”
“Thank you,” said Russ.
He sank down further in the chair, and stared at the stars beyond the windscreen. There was nothing left to do but wait until they arrived.
THE AWAKENER
Mick stumbled out of the ferns and sat down.
It had been eight days now. He’d walked some, drove some, and had ended up here, four hundred miles from the start. He’d just come from his parents house. They had been the same as everyone else - asleep for all time, waiting for someone to wake them up.
As for Mick, he couldn’t sleep if he wanted to, and apparently didn’t need it anyway. He had thought of taking sleeping pills, anything to catch a break, but what if he did fall asleep?
He stood up and followed the driveway, back out to the road. He stopped and looked both ways. Things were already starting to change. It had been a wet spring, and it was now a hot summer. The growth was incredible; thimbleberry vines crowded onto the shoulder of the road, strawberries were sending out their runners. Maple seeds covered the asphalt in a thin layer. A huge branch had fallen and gotten tangled in the power line. No one had come to remove it.
The world was quiet. Mick wasn’t sure how long everything had kept going, only that the power had just stopped at some point. The first night, with him camped in the middle of nowhere, had been quiet anyway, and he’d put off the distant sounds as thunder. But in the morning he had seen clouds of smoke rising in every direction. Crashed airplanes, trains, cars and trucks.
After he realized what had happened, Mick went to a library to try and find information on nuclear plants. He had planned his route around them, and tried to stay upwind.
Suddenly, as he stood there staring blankly at the road in front of his parents’ house, he thought of the girl.
It had been the third day. He’d been searching a suburban neighborhood for possibilities, and he’d picked a house at random. A generally well kept place. There had been chalk drawings along the driveway and sidewalk. He might wake up a whole family. Wouldn’t that be something?
He’d gone in and looked around. The younger kids, they looked about five and seven respectively, were both breathing soft in their beds. The parents too. A guy with prematurely gray hair, and a typical suburban wife beside him. Athletic, plastic looking. There had been pictures hung on the walls, all over. So far this looked like a pretty standard family. Perfectly normal, friendly people, Mick guessed. They might be fine to have along.
There had been one more room. As soon as he entered he knew; this was the room of a teenage girl. An acoustic guitar in the corner, a shelf of young-adult novels and school books, a computer monitor and cell phone decked out in strange sparkly things, posters of flash-in-the-pan pop singers. Not an abnormal girl in any way. Then again, nothing special either.
He went over to the bed. She was lying there, a lock of chestnut hair pasted to her brow with dry sweat. She must have moved in her sleep, sometime before the timeout; the covers had been shoved down to mid-thigh.
Mick felt a rush. Something moved in him. He took a step back, then forward again. He reached out his hand to grab the blanket, to pull it up, to stop himself. But his hand jerked a little, the way it did whenever he was nervous, and scraped along the flesh of her leg. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a single sound. She would never feel that touch.
Mick shut his eyes, his hand hovering a few inches above her.
“Don’t do it,” he said to himself.
He opened his eyes. How old could she possibly be? But maybe...
Mick found himself reasoning it out. She would never know, it wouldn’t even matter, she might be older than that anyway. Arguing, pleading. Just let him touch her here and there, it’s no big deal. All the while, some tiny part inside of him was screaming; don’t.
Mick left the house ten minutes later without waking anyone and feeling filthy. But he hadn’t gone too far with her, not so far that time wouldn’t allow him to forgive himself. The days had passed. He’d gone into other houses. Each time he saw a woman he felt a stab of fear and fled the room. No women, he promised himself, not until he got over it.
Eight days now. And just the other day, the day before yesterday in fact, he’d gone weak. There had been another girl, and this time she had been so beautiful. He thought he might just look around her room, see if she was any good. Then his thought had become “look her over a bit, see what she looks like.” Ridiculous fantasies of repopulating the Earth with his own band of beautiful women flashed in his mind. Mick had always felt he was pretty well grounded in reality, and he felt pathetic. But even so, he couldn’t stop the thoughts once they got started.
This girl had to be eighteen. Absolutely had to be. The type of books she had, the fact that her room was actually tastefully decorated. And she lived with only two other people, an old couple who slept downstairs. Probably just her grandparents who were staying with her for a while.
But she looked young. Mick had trouble getting past that, but not too much. And again he left the house without waking anyone, this time a whole half hour later. He’d gone way too far, and since then he’d felt terribly sick with himself. It wasn’t about to go away. Mick decided not to try waking anyone for a while. Just let him spend some time alone. He had to get himself straight, and he deserved the isolation anyway.
The sickness was still there. A sort of muck, churning around in his chest.
Here he was, staring at the road. Why him, of all people?
&
nbsp; “Wake up.” That was all he had to say. Bend over them, put his face up close, and say it. Then they would wake up. He had heard the words himself, in some far-away dream.
Mick went back to the house. He sat in the living room, on the same couch he used to watch his cartoons on. He had his backpack tucked between his knees. There was a bottle of something at the bottom. He could barely see it way down there in the shadow, among the folds of cloth.
The clock on the wall was still going strong with its battery. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Mick watched the hands. As soon as the hour turned he took a quick breath and quickly grabbed the bottle out of his pack. He looked it over, turned it, watched the syrup within sloshing around. Do not exceed four doses per twenty-four hours. Adults, and children twelve or older, should take two tablespoons every six hours. For younger children, consult your doctor. Do not operate heavy machinery or drive a car...
He ripped off the plastic seal and twisted the cap. He gave it a little smell. It wasn’t his favorite flavor, but whatever. Bottoms up.
It went down easy enough. He sat there for a while, burped a few times, and waited. He got up to find something to eat, but realized that food might slow the process down, so he went back to the couch.
He started to feel bored. He reached for the TV remote and hit the power button. It didn’t come on, and it took a few seconds for Mick to realize why. No more cartoons, then. He chuckled a bit. The stuff was working.
It had been a long eight days. He felt wrecked. He fluffed up a pillow and laid out on the couch. The leather was cool against his skin. It felt a little greasy, and stuck to him a bit. He shut his eyes and tried not to think about anything. It wasn’t very hard.
Some time later, no one would ever know how long, he fell asleep.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAND!
In a future that everyone hopes is distant but really isn’t, in a time when all mankind’s evil had long since come back around, a little boy named Cary Pickle was trying his hardest to fall asleep, but he was too excited about his birthday.
In the century before it all began, war had destroyed the face of the Earth. Where forests had been, the soil had been obliterated down to dust and desert by endless nuclear blasts.
Where oceans had been there were still oceans; oceans full of black radioactive slime that claimed anything that touched it, trapping its soul in eternal screaming torment.
Where the land had been rich and fertile, green and verdant, lovely and lush, there was nothing but desolation.
What was desert was still desert, a wasteland, in this new age populated by roving freaks born out of deformed wombs.
For decades, hope was a dead word. Life had once been the antonym of death; now the two were one and the same, synonymous, symbiotic, linked forever. Death before life, life before death, death following death.
Then came the dream, and the hope. The return of life as the opposite of death. At least for a few.
It started with an apple. A sweet apple, juicy and refreshing. Maybe the first that had grown in a long time. A man ate it, and its seeds fell to the ground. Where he stood, filled with new dreams, he decided he would build a city.
Men had long lived solitarily, or in tiny communities. A city could change things, a city could bring people back together.
There, in the middle of the Fetus Wasteland, he laid the first stone, the first log. Others came, and stone and wood were joined by brick and steel as civilization regained its footing.
Together they built Apple City.
Cary woke up and ran downstairs, yelling, “Happy birthday to me!”
His dad had fallen asleep at the table in the middle of wrapping presents, and jerked up with a trail of crusty drool going down his face.
“Huh! Yeah, happy birthday…” Mr. Pickle snapped off a piece of tape and kept going, like there had been no pause.
“We’re going to Happy Birthday Land!” Cary danced in the middle of the room. He scooted over toward his dad, trying to get a sneaky look at the presents. “Aren’t we, dad? We are, right? When are we going? Dad, when are we going?”
“Uh… Um…”
“When are we going dad?”
“Uh… soon.”
The Pickle family lived in Little Europe, on a nice little street with nice families that never got in fights. Cary and his dad stepped out into the street, the latter with a load of presents under his arm, and looked toward the rising sun.
Sunrise came later now. It came whenever it managed to get over the city wall, five hundred feet high. It was coming now, half the red disc bulging and bleeding over the edge. Mr. Pickle looked at his watch.
“Early start, huh champ?” He reached over and ruffled Cary’s hair.
“Yeah, dad, sure is,” said Cary. “Hello there, Miss Harkadoodle!”
Miss Harkadoodle was walking her dog by. Such a nice old woman. She always gave the kids cookies and told them fun stories. She waved at Cary and a few other kids who were outside.
Mr. Pickle smiled and waved back. “Have a good day, Miss Harkadoodle!”
They got into the car, a Shimmy 300, and drove down the street.
“Hey, look there, champ!” Mr. Pickle announced, pointing at the McDoogles on the corner. “They’ve got buy-one-get-one-free sausage boys, today only! Whaddya say?”
“I say heck yeah, dad!” Cary said. “I love sausage boys! Oh, can I get that dipping stuff too?”
“Sure you can, champ.” Mr. Pickle ruffled Cary’s hair again. “I think I’ll have one or two, myself.”
This McDoogles was nice and clean inside, Cary realized, not like the one they went to that one time when dad visited his friend in East Town.
They got four sausage boys and some of that good dipping sauce. It came in little cups that said “Yummie Goodboy Sauce” on the lid. It tasted like onions.
“Chow down, champ. I want my boy to be well-fed on his birthday.”
Cary ate up, dunking his sausage boys and slathering them in sauce. They finished and got back in the Shimmy.
“How far is it, dad?” Cary asked from the back seat.
“Oh, not far at all, champ. Just a little ways.”
They went a few miles, the eastern wall growing smaller behind them and the western wall growing bigger in front. They went by a few more McDoogles restaurants. Soon they had to go through Aryan Land, and neither of them liked that very much.
Mr. Pickle stepped on the accelerator. Three bald men in weird pants ran into the road and started swinging their heads around. One drank a whole bottle of beer and smashed it over his own head, going “Awooo!” and showing his broken teeth. Mr. Pickle rolled up the windows.
Soon they reached the barrier that would take them into the Hubroads, a maze of streets flanked by tight walls that led all over the city. Mr. Pickle showed his license to the officer at the gate, and answered a few questions about Cary.
They were allowed through. Mr. Pickle said a few bad words as he tried to merge onto the road. It was slow going, but as they got closer, Cary started seeing marquee signs for Happy Birthday Land and other Johnson Bros Co. parks.
The roads were lined with tall posts that had machine guns on top. Every once in a while, Cary saw a few scary looking men watching the cars through weird looking binoculars. All of them had mustaches and were fat. Everything was metal, gray, and ugly.
“Hi there, friends!” a jolly voice said through their radio. “We at Happy Birthday Land have been sent word that a little boy by the name of Cary Pickle is on his way here right now to have the time of his young little life!”
Cary clapped his hands, and Mr. Pickle smiled at him in the rearview mirror.
“Well!” the voice went on. “We at Happy Birthday Land love to show little boys and girls a great time on their special day! I’m pleased to tell you that this month is Jumpy, Bumpy, Rolly Clown Month! All one hundred of our park entertainers are dressing as clowns for the theme! Watch out for them once you get into Happy Birthday Land! And remember this special lit
tle tip, friends; if you find the one with the purple nose, knock him off his unicycle to win a special prize!”
The voice laughed and tooted a horn, and then went away.
“Remember that, champ. Purple nose. I’ll bet they give you a credit pass to use in their gift store!”
Cary remembered last year. He got a few things from the gift store, but there was so much stuff there! He was definitely going to find that purple-nosed clown!
A few minutes later, Mr. Pickle put on the turn signal and said, “Here we are, champ!”
They entered a wide tunnel. Lights blinked on and off, all different colors, spinning around in flashing chaos. A sound grew louder over the radio. The Happy Birthday Land theme song! Cary bounced around in tune with it, and Mr. Pickle tapped on the steering wheel.
There were lights at the end of the tunnel. They came out into a huge parking lot. Over the barrier, Cary could see the big buildings and the colors. The entrance was before them, a huge wide tent with loud music coming from it. They parked and ran in.
The tent was dark, and some fast crazy clown song played somewhere deeper inside. The girl at the podium was dressed like a clown and tooted a horn when they came in.
“Welcome to Happy Birthday Land!” she said, throwing her hands up. “You must be little Cary Pickle, huh? Why, you’re the cutest boy I’ve seen all day! Why don’t you come over and get your special Happy Birthday bracelet!”
She put a plastic band around his arm, striped in all different colors. One part had writing on it. It said:
“Cary Pickle
Age: 9
Lives: 1542 Pirate Treasure Rd. Little Europe
Guardian: Gilbert Pickle Age: 34”
“So if you get lost, they know how to help you!” Mr. Pickle said. “Come on, champ, we’ve got a long day of fun ahead of us!”
Mr. Pickle dumped the presents in the present receptacle. They moved further into the tent.
They came into a big room with huge balls rotating on the ceiling and reflecting light everywhere. Tons of kids were here, kids from East Town and North Town and Little Europe and the Southern Sphere, dancing with people dressed like clowns. The music was faster now, and it made Cary want to spin around until he got dizzy and fell down. But he was too excited to see the rest of the place; they revamped it every year, and this year it was supposed to be really awesome.
