Palimpsest (Book 3): Coins for Charon

by P. J. Post

  I turn around and do a quick head count like taking attendance for a class trip.

  Pixie looks up at me with just a murmur of a growl; now she looks anxious.

  “Okay, there’s too many of us to sneak by, and we don’t have any way to get through the fence or over the razor wire...”

  “What’s razor wire?” Casey asks.

  I pull her close and then point. “See the loops at the top of the fence, like a stretched Slinky?”

  “What’s a Slinky?”

  I laugh softly. “The loopy-loop stuff on top of the fence, that’s really sharp, it can cut you really, really bad, like go see a doctor bad. Don’t ever try to crawl over it, okay? We can’t go that way.”

  I hear Jem’s voice. “What if we had to?”

  “Get over the razor wire?” I ask.

  She nods, pulling her hair into a low ponytail, her eyes intent.

  “Throw shit over it; cover it up, thick blankets, coats, pizza boxes, trashcans, Christmas Trees, unicorns…anything to keep the razors from cutting through.”

  “Are Unicorns even real?” Emily giggles, grinning as she rests her chin on Jem’s shoulder.

  I laugh again as Jem takes Emily’s hand.

  Allen laughs too, but without humor. “That’s fucking stupid, unicorns aren’t fucking real.”

  “This is a brave new world, there’s no telling what’s real now,” I say, glancing at Pixie as she scampers over and sits at my feet.

  Jem raises her .38 with both hands so that Allen gets a good look. “I think you’re fucking stupid, but you’re real,” she says.

  “Hey,” I say to her, “I didn’t teach you that one yet, no getting ahead.” I wink at her and she smiles.

  Allen’s going to be a problem.

  “So, yeah, no sneaking in,” I say, getting us back on point.

  “Because of the razor wire,” Casey says, smiling at Jem.

  Jem grins back.

  “That’s right. So we need to get them to open the gate for us.”

  “But they’ll just take us, like they did Shinji,” Carlton says, his voice full of dread. He’s the only one of the group wearing dress shoes. He looks like his mom dressed him for Sunday School, complete with checkered dress pants that just don’t fucking fit, and the worst, most embarrassingly shitty reindeer sweater I’ve ever seen, even for a third grader.

  He needs a haircut too, his straight ginger bangs hang almost to his pug nose.

  “Yeah, but don’t worry, they’re not hurting Shinji, he’s a kid, they’re probably just trying to take care of him, feed him, you know? These people aren’t evil; they’re not like the Cart People.”

  “Who are the Cart People?” Carlton asks.

  The other kids look equally confused.

  “The elepunts,” Jem says, and motions with her hand to simulate the gas masks hoses they wear.

  Casey wraps her arms around herself and shivers.

  “But they’re going to do what grownups always do,” I continue, “try and take control even if it’s wrong, do what’s best for them, and we don’t have time to wait around while they work through their guilt and regret.”

  They look up at me, confused again.

  I can’t wait to talk to adults again.

  “We need to get Shinji and keep moving, got it?” I explain. “Jem, Em, put your guns away, but be ready. Casey, you’re the littlest one, you go first.”

  “Why me?” she asks, seeming more curious than scared.

  “Because grownups have lots and lots of sympathy for little kids, or at least they used to. Can you look pitiful?”

  “What’s that?” she asks, her dark eyes are outlined with even darker circles, her hair is matted and filthy, her face, like her clothes, is smeared with blood and trauma.

  “Never mind, you’re good,” I say, and wink at her.

  She smiles, showing me the gap where her two front teeth are growing in.

  I take a deep breath and hold it.

  Exhale.

  “Okay, head through the bushes when I tell you.” I kneel down so that I’m at eye level with her, and put an arm around her shoulders, staring across the street at the Red Cross guys.

  Snowflakes gently begin to float with the breeze, silhouetted against the golden perimeter search lights. They’re big, fluffy flakes, the first snow of the year.

  Casey leans into my embrace, her eyes grow wide as she grins. She points between the branches, and then looks me in the eye, inches away. I can feel her breath on my face. “It’s snowing, is Santa coming to help us?” she whispers.

  Jesus.

  “Maybe, maybe, just remember to walk slow, don’t call out, let them find you on their own, I’m sure they’re already looking, and when they take you, don’t say anything, pretend the unicorns stole your tongue…”

  She sticks her tongue out and pretend-bites at it, and then squeezes her lips closed.

  Please God, don’t let her die.

  “Go,” I say and push her through the branches and out onto the open street.

  I close my eyes.

  The Crayton sharp shooter is drawing a bead on Emily, that day next to the soccer field…it’s so clear…the clouds cooling off the warm afternoon…I can feel the breeze on my face, smell the burning…

  One Mississippi…

  I hear Emily breathing.

  “Lane?” she asks, her voice trembling.

  Her hand is on my arm.

  He’s laying down his rifle and drawing his sidearm…

  I hear Casey take a deep breath just on the other side of the branches, I can still reach her, pull her back, save her, stop this; I feel the branches rustle against my face — she’s not walking yet…

  Two Mississippi…

  Emily suddenly turns the corner and sees him…she thinks he’s going to help her…

  I hear a whimper or maybe it’s a sigh, and then Casey’s crunching over broken glass out in the street, uneven steps…and then…

  Three Mississippi...

  Emily raises her arms, like she’s expecting the Crayton mercenary to pick her up…

  I only hear the quiet of the night and the snowfall.

  Don’t freeze, you can do this…come on, Casey…

  Four Mississippi…

  Emily’s blue, so blue, so innocent eyes widen…suddenly terrified…

  Louder voices call from beyond the street, shouting, and there’s other noises, running maybe…

  Five Mississippi...

  Blood sprays across Emily’s face…

  I don’t hear gunshots.

  I hear Casey moving across the street again, light steps, brave steps…

  I unclench my fists and open my eyes.

  Emily’s still watching me with worried, searching eyes.

  I wipe the sweat from my face, and take a deep breath. “Jem, come here, stay cool, you’re next, keep an eye on Casey when you get through, don’t shoot anyone you don’t have to, okay? Emily, you’re next.”

  Jem salutes me, reminding me of the night we met, the night she shot the Elepunt, the night she saved my life. I feel Emily hugging me and then she kisses my cheek and pats me on the head before taking her turn, and then I stop counting Mississippi’s and keep shoving kids through the bushes, from small to big, quietly keeping track of the lack of gunshots, and finally, with Pixie at my side, I step out into the lights.

  Hawk was right on the money about the soldiers. Four show up with the Doctors, calling out to the kids to meet them at the gate. Another ten or so refugees line up, watching through another fence I didn’t notice before. It runs from the gate to the tent.

  The kids do as I told them, stringing out in a jagged line heading for the gate and the soldiers.

  No one runs.

  I try to remember that to these people I’m just a teenager, lucky to be alive, hungry, thirsty and just as dependent on grownups as any other kid.

  I’m weak.

  Pixie’s just a puppy.

  And we’re helples
s.

  As we get closer, lots of additional white lab-coated people start shouting and running out to greet us. We all do as they say, but I keep an eye on the tent as I cross the street. It’s glowing yellow, shadows play out against the canvas walls, but I can’t tell what’s going on inside.

  I’m sure they’re just trying to help Shinji, they have to be, how dangerous can they think he is?

  He has to be okay.

  The big, dually military truck is parked sideways across the street on the inside of the sliding gate but doesn’t quite cover the opening. I think we can slip through over the dead grass of the parking lot planters without the guards having to move it.

  As soon as Casey gets close, one of the lab-coated women looks both ways, like a car or bus is going to leap out of the darkness, and slides through the opening and runs out into the street. She picks Casey up, holding her tight against her chest. Casey doesn’t hug her back. The Doc carries her through the gate toward the tent. Jem and Emily follow as another takes them by the hand.

  One by one we filter through, until it’s my turn.

  Even though I’m trying to act all lost and scared and shit, I’m taller and a lot less cute, a lot less pitiful.

  One of the Crayton fucks puts his hand on my chest, stopping me. “This your brood?”

  He’s over six feet tall and thick, wearing camouflaged military armor and a matching helmet. His other fist is wrapped around a pistol.

  I nod, trying to act innocent.

  “Are there more?” he asks as he looks out beyond the lights. His face is pretty haggard and full of Dad Rock beard stubble, his eyes…

  He turns his attention back to me, his eyes are pretty fucking hard.

  I try to be as expressionless as I can.

  Was I walking with too much confidence?

  Not intimidated enough?

  More predator than scavenger…

  He’s studying me pretty fiercely, maybe he’s just trying to figure out how we survived, if we’re going to be obedient little shits or if we’re going to be trouble. Maybe he’s trying to decide if we deserve his pity.

  I glance down at his gun and then back up.

  He’s got a name tag, it reads…

  His expression suddenly changes from curiosity to concern to suspicion…

  “Brolin, let him go, Jesus, he’s just a kid,” another soldier says, and pushes the guy’s hand away, Paul Brolin’s hand.

  He frowns, suddenly angry, but he steps aside and lets me go just the same.

  I reach down and pick Pixie up with one hand, cradling her against my chest, and his hand is back on my shoulder, restraining me.

  “No dogs,” he says with authority and an asshole smirk.

  I squeeze the grip on my .45 still in my pocket…and Pixie starts to growl that deep inside growl thing she does.

  “Come on, follow me,” a young man says, pulling at my pistol arm. “You’re a jerk, Paul. We don’t care about your dog,” he says to me, and then leads me toward the tent.

  “There’s something off about this kid, mark my words, Doc — he’s no good,” Paul says as he scoops up a bottle of Jack Daniels from the truck hood and leans against the fender. He unscrews the cap. “No fucking good.”

  We’re through.

  The tent must have a back entrance, another gate or something; it’s like a one-way line at an amusement park. Regardless, I won’t have to deal with this idiot again.

  A miserable-looking group of survivors along the back fence shouts at the kids, like one of those movies where the newbie felon walks into prison, down that center hall, the inmates shouting shit at him from the cells on either side. Except these are just kids. I can’t hear all of it, but what I do is fucked up.

  The guards ignore them.

  The Doctors wince, but otherwise, they ignore them too.

  Maybe they’re always down here, harassing refugees, looking for easy marks.

  I drag my feet enough to get a good look at them, remembering them, just in case. I don’t have time today, but Karma has a long fucking memory.

  “Come here, Sugar, you’re a sweet little thing, ain’t ya?” one of the men shouts at Hawk. He’s licking his lips with a quick and impatient tongue. He’s wearing one of those dung-colored, deer-hunting overall outfits and a dirty baseball cap. He’s got a face full of greasy beard that makes him look old, but I can’t tell how old.

  His fingers hang in the fencing.

  And then Hawk walks over to the fence and spits at him. “Fuck you,” she hisses.

  He bellows, pushing against the fence at the same time.

  The fencing gives under the force of his outstretched hands, coming close enough…Hawk jumps back and falls, sprawling across the asphalt as she drops Shinji’s coat. She scrambles back on her hands and knees.

  “Where you goin’ sweetie? I’ll show you what you can do with that smartass nigger mouth,” he calls, laughing a laugh full of hate.

  And then she gets to her feet as a nurse grabs her by her coat collar and heaves.

  The other men laugh with him, trading pats and locker-room punches.

  “Stop the grab-ass down there, we don’t need your shit tonight, Clifford, not tonight,” one of the guards from the gate shouts at us.

  “Fuck you, Paul,” Clifford shouts back, and then the others start shouting insults at the guards too.

  Hawk looks scared now.

  She should be.

  Jesus, she should be — but she fucking shouldn’t need to be.

  I follow the clipboard-wielding Doctor across the tree-lined Starbucks’ parking lot, wondering if old Clifford here and his pals are worth a full magazine as I watch each of the kids disappear inside the tent.

  It would be so, so easy.

  Civilization already sucks.

  Jem and Emily have managed to piss off their Nurse. I can see her from here, she’s stammering, waving her arms and stamping her foot, but they’re not having any of it — they just look smug, standing near the entrance, arms folded, ignoring her as they wait for me and Hawk.

  Hawk and her Nurse stop at the entrance too. Hawk looks back, nervous, scared — shit, she’s working through emotions I can’t even imagine.

  I let my Doctor wander off by himself, mumbling and stop in front of Cliff.

  “What are you lookin’ at, boy?” he asks.

  “Maybe he wants a piece of you too,” one of his buddies jokes.

  “Is that it, boy, you queer?”

  He’s got narrow brown eyes, almost green near the pupil with droopy lids. Under a flat and often broken nose are thin lips, a fat scar runs across both of them, disappearing into his gray beard. He’s got a tattoo of a coiling snake on his neck.

  “Boy? What are you up to?”

  His right ear’s pierced, and he’s got another scar at the top of the same ear from a knife or something. His teeth were rotting before the end of the world, they’re a combination of meth-yellow and nicotine-brown.

  “Boy, I’m warning you, you don’t wanna mess with me, what you be looking at?”

  He’s a tenor.

  He jumps at me like he did Hawk, shouting and pushing the fence to within inches of my face.

  I don’t even blink.

  But I can smell him now — stale beer and stale cigars, and lots of aftershave, I don’t remember the name, but I can picture the commercials.

  His crow’s feet aren’t that long, his wrinkles not that deep — he’s not more than forty-five.

  He laughs nervously and turns back to his pals, letting the fence recoil back into place.

  I take a step back, nodding, but never take my eyes off him.

  “What, what are you nodding for?” he demands, his voice rising in pitch.

  I keep nodding as I back away toward the tent, and then add a smile, a great big, Christmas morning smile as I scoop up Shinji’s coat.

  My guide returns, all flustered.

  “Get him away from there!” Paul shouts.

  “Come
on,” the Doc says as he pulls at my arm.

  “Don’t fuck with me, boy…” Clifford shouts.

  I hold his gaze, wondering how dead my eyes look.

  “Nice to meet you, Clifford,” I say loud enough for Hawk to hear, “I’ll be seeing you around…”

  And then I let the Doctor pull me away.

  “Fuck you, you little shit,” he shouts from the far side of the fence, from safety — for now.

  Jem says something to Hawk, and then Hawk turns to me and smiles, a lot less nervous than before.

  I nod, and then they all give their Doctors and Nurses a break and go inside.

  The Doctor I’m following turns; I can already see the excuses in his expression. “Sorry about the men and the…they’re, well…they’re reprehensible I suppose, but we don’t…we’re trying, we’re trying. We usually have more people here, and it’s not like this, usually. Anyway, my name is Peter. Let’s get you inside and checked out, get you something hot to drink.”

  I just stare at him, keeping my face as blank as I can.

  He’s got short, dark curly hair, and looks like a college kid. He’s got sincere brown eyes. Under his lab coat, he’s wearing clean dress clothes, like in the Before Time.

  “What’s your name?” he asks. His smile looks forced.

  I ignore his question and try to avoid eye contact.

  “Where are your parents?”

  I give him nothing.

  “It’s going to be okay, you’re safe now.”

  “We’ll see…”

  An explosion echoes through town. It’s louder from down here. I can feel it in the ground.

  Peter flinches, and heads for his knees as he covers his head with the clipboard.

  There’s silence for a few seconds and then he looks up at me from under his new hat, making eye contact as he stands back up. He looks embarrassed as he shrugs.

  I feel safer already.

  As soon as I step inside, I scan the tent and locate every one of the kids, including Shinji. He’s standing with Hawk and a Doctor. Seems like a Doctor and Nurse have paired up with all of the kids, they’re asking lots of questions, but so far, my kids are keeping their mouths shut.