However the nuke damage far was worse than he had expected. The terrain had been zapped into nothing but a flat plate of dust. Anything worth hunting had either died or migrated north east. The few homes that were left had been picked dry so he had a hard time finding food to scavenge. And then there was the problem of water. Water, water nowhere and not a drop to piss.
With one hand over the other, Kilt collected the splintery rope. The wind picked up, blowing specks of sand in his eyes. Tearlessly he blinked it away, but if it kept on, he would need to put his rag over his face.
The tin can was heavier than before. It is. Isn’t it? Now closer to the surface, the length of slack rope was almost back to its original size.
Finally the Broger’s Baked Beans logo, with the grinning dog mascot, peaked over the edge. Kilt grabbed it, bringing the can up to his eye: two inches of foggy water slopped over the grey stone he had dropped in for weight.
He sat up and brought the cup to his lips, sipping slowly so not to spill a drop. He licked the inside and sucked on the rock.
Kilt looked over at the adobe house and then back at the hole. He hung his head. If he wasn’t drier than a burnt walnut he might have cried.
When he first saw the adobe sitting alone like an old man past his expiration, he decided to take a look on account he suspected, being so far from town, they had kept a ground water well. He had expected it to be abandoned, thinking whoever once lived there probably either died in the hospital from Medusa or, if they were lucky, escaped northeast to the Kradle.
Instead, he found it occupied by a family of four skeletons.
Kilt clenched the dirt between his teeth and looked into the big, open eyes of the cartoon dog staring up at him from the faded can label. “Looks like I got the last drink there was and ever will be.” But ‘ol Broger didn’t answer.
Pulling himself up, he dragged his feet back to the house. He sank down in what was once the foyer. Kilt stuck his legs out onto the cement patio, no overhead porch nor sun for it to block, and leaned against the frame. He set the can down with a hollow clang and turned the Broger dog to face dead ahead; north to nothing. The dusty plaster of barren land lay before him, the border stretching as far away as Judgment day.
As he surveyed the grey, naked vastness of the terrain, flat and geriatric, he weighed his diminished options.
He was foolish to have waited this long. He knew that now. His morning breakfast of deer jerky and creek water, grey and murky mixed with strawberry flavored powder marked the end of his rations. Why had he stayed so long?
“Where else can I go?” he asked Broger. Better to die in an abandoned house than face down in the dirt.
Using a dirty finger, he peeled off his tongue which was stuck to the roof of his mouth like a leech.
“I think we might be in trouble now,” he called back to Ma and Pa skeleton lying in bed. Their bone bald heads were turned toward him while their hollow listening eyes absorbed the echo of his words.
A laugh tickled his fur coated throat and erupted hoarsely from his cracked lips. But there was nothing funny. He turned back to the porch, taking in the unobstructed landscape.
How far was fresh water? As close as the next rain. He tilted his chin to the sky. The grey nuclear cloud that stretched across most of the fifty-six states hovered over the land like a prophecy. If it ever rained, it would likely be acidic.
So what was he waiting for?
He looked at the skeletons. I can’t leave you guys behind. He thought. We’re in this together.
Besides, it was lonely out there. Man wasn’t meant to be alone. Some handled it better than others, but Kilt never could seem to shake his “solo angst” as he called it.
There were two smaller skeletons lying in the pale blue bedroom at the back of the house. After finding them on the first day, he shut the door and hadn’t been back since. But he liked this house. If he could pluck it out of the ground like a potato and replant it on a nice piece of farmland, then he would—one room for James, the other for him and a kitchen to share.
Was it wrong to want to take the skeleton family’s home?
“I got too involved. But that wasn’t your fault,” he said to their constantly surprised faces. “It was mine.” He turned back to Earth’s blank canvas. “And now look where it got me.”
Man, he was losing it out here all alone.
But that wasn’t the only reason why he stayed. It wasn’t just the house. He was hiding.
Kilt held his hands around his eyes like binoculars and faced northeast. Somewhere out there a highly trained killer was searching for him. Kilt panned southeast. Somewhere out there his brother, James, was living far away on a deserted island, except he wasn’t alone. Mevia was with him.
He tried not to think of the box lying next to the couch. He told himself to stay put, but already knew he’d cave. No, it’s too risky. They’ll find you. He cursed Eli and then cursed himself. Don’t blame Eli. Kilt had his chance to slit his throat and he blew it, now he had to pay by checking over his shoulder every time he looked for James.
Screw it. He wouldn’t be able to relax until he peeked again. He went inside.
He picked up the charred jewelry box he had found one day while scavenging a burned down house in a Tex-Mexican city that had been nuked some years ago. The once ornate lid was decorated festively, painted in reds and blues and golds and greens. The image on the front was unfamiliar, an icon from the yester-world: white, cartoonish horses, decorated like a herd of Easter eggs posing atop a platform. They were attached to each other and looked to be going around in a fruitless circle. The logic of riding in circles escaped him.
He set the box in his lap, opened it and removed the device. It was the size and shape of his palm, black with a red and a green light. Solar panels were on the back, and a battery pack was attached to the bottom. He switched it on, hoping it had stored enough sun-juice.
The device emitted a faint high pitch squeal as it powered up. Kilt waited, staring at the dark green bulb, but as he half expected, the red ignited and the green was dead. No show. No signal.
Quickly he turned it off, hoping that no one was looking. Telescope eyes, as he called them, watching from somewhere far away, waiting for him to gopher his little head out the ground so they could blast it off. He put the beacon into the box and set it on the table.
Kilt went back to the porch and pulled out his finger binoculars. He faced straight ahead and squinted through the holes.
In the distance a small dot hovered in the air. If they were real binoculars he’d think it was a speck on the lens. Was it a large bird? Kilt rubbed his crusty eyes sensing there was something strange about this magna avem. Boy, Churin would be proud he still remembered his Latin.
He walked down the steps to the edge of the porch. If it was a bird then it would know where to find water. Kilt craned his neck keeping his eye on sky with the focus of a pointer dog.
Then, his skin tingled, and erupted in goose flesh. Slowly he walked backward up the porch steps. It was flying too fast.
The wind carried over the soft hum of an engine.
“Shit!” Kilt dove inside and belly crawled to the living room window. He peered into the sky, heavy with overcast. The drone was still flying parallel, due west. Perhaps it hadn’t seen him.
Kilt held his breath. As it moved closer, the body took shape and he recognized it as a Predator Drone. The barren country was swarming with them and, officially, they were intended to locate hidden “enemies of the state.” Unofficially, they were used to haul in their own citizens living independently from the Kradle. So, although it had never caught any real Eurasian threats, the government deemed the project a success.
Suddenly, with an elegant flip of the wing, the Predator changed its course and was heading directly at the house.
“Hide!” He tore open the box, grabbed the module which may have been what gave him away and stuffed it in his pocket.
He ran into the bedroom and slamme
d the door. He rushed past the bed where Ma and Pa were having a snooze and pulled the thin curtains closed.
Kilt moved away from the window, tripping over on the bed as he passed. “Sorry.”
He pressed his ear to the door.
The wind whistled past the open front door. The patter of blowing sand speckled the house like a thousand pin drops.
The hum of the engine was growing from a soft whirr into a loud whine that was becoming more and more intense until it sounded as if it were hovering just over the roof. How close is this guy going to get?
Kilt’s heart pounded. If they found him he’d be arrested and charged as a defector. Who knew what sort of heinous punishment the GovCorps would cook up? All this way. He had escaped all the way across the country only to get caught over something as stupid as signal searching. Idiot!
The engine now sounded as if it were screaming just over his head. What was the drone doing? He jolted upright. Missiles. Hadn’t he heard somewhere that all the drones carried missiles. They were going to blow the house!
Kilt jerked the door open, but as he did a tornado of sand pelted his eyes. “Aaah!” He fell to the ground, blinded. His fingers dug in lamely, trying to relieve the God-awful stinging. He rolled around. Between the sound, the pain and the fear of the missile, Kilt was almost crazy with panic. Don’t lose it. Don’t you lose it now! With a flick of a leg, he rolled over until he was back inside the frame. Blindly, he grabbed the bedroom door and shut it with a slam!
At that exact moment the drone began to leave. Kilt froze. He removed his fingers from his watery eyes, one of which he was now able to open. He squinted the one eye up at the ceiling as if he could see through it.
The buzz of the engine was fading, fading.
Pulling up the collar of his shirt, he wiped his eyes and then blinked away the last of the grit.
Slowly he reached out and turned the door handle, his hand shaking. The click of the knob was barely audible over the fading engine. He slowly pulled it open, the ancient hinges, still coated in white paint, creaked.
Raising a hand to protect his eyes, he carefully leaned over and peered out of the bedroom.
The front door was still open, swinging back and forth, its creaking like a mewing cat. The wind had died down, but there were still wisps of sand blowing inside, circling their way into the main hall.
The drone engine was now a moderate purr.
It appeared he had out foxed the GovCorps once again. He let out a huge breath.
The front door continued to creak back and forth, grinding on its whining hinges. Kilt stepped out of the cozy bedroom and went to shut it.
He halted mid-step. Something had caught his eye. There was an aggressive bit of light shining dead set into his still aching eyeball. He stepped to the side and turned around.
A small, quivering red dot was burning into the wall where his head had been.
Suddenly the drone engine was loud again and Kilt’s stomach turned to stone.
The missiles.
They were going to blow the whole damn house.
Chapter 4
Mevia
They weren’t given any breakfast the following morning. It was in the mid-day heat when Grunt finally sauntered over and tossed down a bundle of green bananas.
“Eat up blondie.” He glared down at Mevia before waddling away, his fat belly jiggling under his stained shirt.
“Eat quickly,” Mevia said, snapping the leathery peels. “Hide the rest. I always leave a chunk in the corner, opposite of the bed to keep the bugs over on that side.”
“Is he coming back?”
Mevia, chewed the sour mush and peered into Flora’s eyes, dilated black with fear.
Flora was the stereotypical Corp-girl. She had a distinct color palette that was only available in the Corporates: white teeth, bronze skin, blue and pink swirled eyes, curled f-lashes, pink hair, chemically straightened. Each were pro-natural alterations that could be purchased at salons. Mevia never saw anyone looking like that from her neighborhood. She briefly wondered what Flora thought of her own naturally crazy curls.
“He’ll be back,” Mevia answered. “After they eat.”
Flora looked up to the surface as if bracing for a bombing, the crisscross of the bamboo made shadows over her face. She turned to Mevia and watching.
“Want help?” she offered.
Mevia handed her the banana she was struggling with. “Thanks.”
Flora jerked at the pithy stem. “Does it hurt?” she asked carefully.
“No.” Mevia shook her head. “It was a clean slice and the docto-bots operated.”
Flora frowned. “They didn’t do any regrowth therapy?”
Mevia made a noise. “Nope.” She accepted the white fruit Flora had separated and stuffed it into her mouth. “Not for criminals.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mevia shrugged. In the past couple of months she had gotten used to not having a left hand.
“What was it like?” Flora asked, leaning forward, “fighting those drones in your Demonstration, especially when everyone around you was getting killed? I bet it was terrifying.”
Mevia looked down at her sour breakfast, her eyes tracing over the wrist that would never again support an appendage. Her mind went back to the arena, the dirt and the dust, the weight of the rifle in her hands, the robot drone stalking her from behind the rocks, ten feet tall, programmed to kill.
“I’m sorry.” Flora placed her hand on Mevia’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t be asking things like that.”
Mevia shook her head. “No. It’s alright. I don’t mind. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.” They exchanged embarrassed smiles. “The truth is, yes, it was scary. It was horrible watching the other Demonstrators, your competition, fighting on the other side of the glass, watching them get beheaded, dismembered, sliced up. I was terrified, absolutely, but honestly, I mostly remember that I felt angry.”
“Angry at who? Congress? Yeah I’d be flipped too if I got put in the arena without murdering someone first. I can’t believe that they lumped you in with all of those violent offenders. Guys like them.” She nodded up toward the surface.
Mevia nodded. “Yeah. Congress.” But that was only partly true. Because, whenever she thought back to the Training Center where she spent the week preparing for her fights, or back to those nights in the arena where she dodged the swinging, blades of the drone’s arms or jumped out of range of their bullets, all she could think about was Eli and how it was his fault they were still there.
“I mean,” Flora continued, peeling another banana, “I know they warned the country that they were cracking down on political crimes, but still, it isn’t right.”
“Thanks,” Mevia took a bite, “for saying so.”
Flora stopped eating after only two bananas. Mevia showed her the hiding place behind a rock where she stored the rest. She set it next to the little black contraption she had managed to keep hoarded away from the peering eyes of Grunt. She replaced the stones and crawled over to their bed.
Flora smoothed the rear of her potato sack prison shirt that hung down to her thighs—the same one Mevia was wearing, but newer. Flora sat down neatly on the ground as if pulling up a chair at a dining table. She scrunched her knees up to her chest and perched her chin on top, her pink hair cascading over suntanned shoulders. She gazed down at her toes, wiggling the dirty little digits.
Mevia was struck by the innocence of the gesture, so child-like. She wondered how someone as young as Flora ended up in jail. Drugs? The Corp judges hammered down on those who got caught dealing within the walls. There was a fresh face of criminal under the new rule of the Rebuilding. Mevia had heard about it, but…to actually see it in the flesh.
The heat of her Corporate hatred began boiling from inside, the same heat that warmed her on cold nights, radiating through her body, burning her fingertips until they grew restless to act. It was the same heat that got her into trouble in back home, but it was the only
comfort she knew, as if her deceased parents were wrapping their arms around her shoulders.
“I probably got through the worst of it yesterday, right?” Flora asked.
Mevia turned away, not able to look into her doleful eyes, but she managed to give a slight nod. She didn’t know what to expect for Flora. Regardless, there was nothing she could say to prepare the poor girl. Some warnings were too horrible to give.
***
Sometime later Grunt was back, removing the bamboo screen. Flora’s eyes widened. He tossed it aside and stood on the edge of the hole as if assessing them. The stench of body odor and charred meat filled the space. He wrapped his dirty, sausage-thick fingers around the goat skin belt which strained against his chunk of a waist. The once humid pit felt cold with his shoulders blocking the sun.
He jumped down and grabbed Flora. She thrashed violently against his grip. Mevia remembered how terrified she was the first time they came down for her, but she didn’t remember being so panicked, so flitchy.
“Don’t fight it,” she hissed. The struggle only made them hungrier. Grunt was like a savage feral cat toying with a flappy baby bird.
“Shut that mouth, bitch!” Grunt kicked Mevia sending her seat first into the dirt, knocking her breath away. He grinned, exposing yellowed canines. “Don’t be jealous, slut. I’m comin’ back for you.”
Despite her struggling, he lifted Flora easily to the surface where Roach was waiting. Flora began crying which turned into screaming and then kicking.
“Stop fighting!” Mevia begged.
But Flora was rabid: twisting, biting, scratching.
The panic. Mevia was all too familiar with the crushing red panic. Sometimes during a piling, when it was really bad, she was sure her chest was going to collapse. At times she wished it would, but it was something that you learned to ignore. To give into instinct was unwise.
Children of the Kradle (Trilogy Book 1) Page 2
