Happily Never After

by Kristen Duvall

  oo00oo

  The removal of the orange hood woke Astrid out of her sedation. She lifted her head from her chest, her neck sore. It felt like she needed all her strength just to raise her eyes level. She felt odd, weightless, drained of energy. Though there was little light her eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom. Her hands were shackled to a steel frame that was clamped to a wall. Her feet were also strapped, and a thick belt looped around her waist. Whoever else was in the room, Astrid couldn’t tell. For in front of her and to both sides hung thick sheets of plastic.

  A hacking cough off to her right broke through the silence. Astrid tried to see through the plastic but all she could see was a shadow.

  “Who's there?”

  “Just me and your friends, Astrid.” The plastic sheet in front of her was pulled aside, white light forced Astrid's eyes to clamp shut, her hands flinching to shield her face, but held by the restraints.

  Gingerly, Astrid opened her eyes. Squinting with the light, the silhouette in front of her slowly blurred into focus. It was the grey man.

  “Mr Hopkins? What - where am I?”

  “Where you wanted to be Astrid, with your brother. If I may...”

  Mr Hopkins stepped over and pulled back the sheet that was hanging to Astrid’s right. The shadowy figure, though thin and emaciated, was familiar. It was Max. He was strapped to another steel frame, suspended off of the ground. Max's head was lolling, as if he was dreaming. She was shocked to see that various thick tubes ran in and out of Max's torso. From her position, Astrid could see two in particular: one full of red blood, another seemed to be filled with a dirty fluid.

  Mr Hopkins let the sheet go. Max was once more nothing but a shadow. Astrid looked down, unable to look Hopkins in the eye, and was shocked to see similar tubes protruding from her body. Water pulsing inwards, blood slowly seeping outwards.

  Astrid started to scream, to weakly thrash, she yelled out for her brother, for help, for anyone. She screamed until she felt too weak, too overwhelmed, to continue. The whole time Hopkins just studied her, like a collector examining a prize butterfly.

  “No one can hear you, nor will they help you if they did.” Hopkins adjusted a tube coming out of Astrid’s arm, squeezing it until a sludgy brown material started slowly moving into her body. “You are now a resident in what we call the Works, an integral part of our community.”

  “I don’t....” Astrid felt even weaker, as if the brown sludge was slowly forcing her asleep. Hopkins seemed unconcerned, talking to himself, as much as her, as he checked her pulse and then her pupils.

  “You see we had a dilemma. We found the underground reservoir with enough water for a thousand lifetimes. I’m sure you could understand our dismay when we realised that, like most things, the war had contaminated it. Our chance at existence turned undrinkable, totally worthless, irradiated filth. Some did try to drink it, in the early days; their deaths were particularly unpleasant.

  “Then, well I’m not one to boast, but I worked out a way of filtering the water, making it safe to drink. You see, the human body is quite an incredible device, very adaptable and resilient. One of those tubes connects you to the reservoir. Ah, good, it seems the sedatives are finally taking affect.”

  Hopkins lifted her face up from her chest, looking into her eyes, brushing some hair away from her mouth. Then gently lowered it back down.

  “Yes, so what happens, in layman’s terms, is that the nasty water goes in, your body processes it, and clean safe water manifests as part of your blood system. 90% of your blood is water, you see. We then draw out just enough of the old red stuff so as not to kill you. Then your blood is subsequently processed, and we separate the water content out from the other bits. Bingo! Clean drinkable water for our little community, and the rest of the blood gets used as fertilizer for our plants. All we need to do is keep you dosed and fed, and you should be able to work for at least two months, if not more. A very efficient system if you don’t mind me saying.”

  Astrid could barely hear him now, the world was slowly slipping into shadows. Hopkins leant in close, whispering into her ear.

  “It is a shame that you filters have a limited life span. Though you may find solace in knowing that when your time comes, your body will be transformed into fuel for the rest of your fellow workers. So every cloud has a silver lining, eh?

  “Now I should go. It was nice to meet you Astrid. I’ll leave you to catch up with your sibling.”

  Whether Hopkins cared or not, Astrid was oblivious to his departure. Her eyes didn’t even register when the lights were turned off, plunging her back into darkness. She was lost in another world now, one in which she and Max played within the crystal waters of a magnificent fountain. Splashing each other and laughing, as jets of water arched across a blue sky filled with white clouds.

  About Andrew Patch

  Andrew's fiction has featured in, amongst others, Firewords Quarterly, With Painted Words, The Were Traveler and the drabble anthology 100 Worlds. He is currently working on a sci-fi novel set in England during the 1990s.

  Occasionally he writes things on Twitter: @imageronin

  The Rumpled Man

  by Setsu Uzume

  The snow sizzled against the translucent blue dome. Birds sometimes met the same fate, evidenced by the putrefying carcasses just a few inches from the base. It was meant to keep out all kinds of things—insects, predators, pathogens. Sometimes it identified snowflakes as equally insidious.

  Lyolee and Margret often wriggled through the piles of broken cars, torn plastic bags, and gutted apartments to sit by the edge of the dome and watch what happened when things tried to cross through it. They especially enjoyed it when a rat or a seagull got too close.

  On this January day, they watched a rat skitter toward the edge of the dome. The electrified blue field was flush with the ground—no way under or over. The rat skittered close, and sniffed a blade of grass. It sniffed the metal panel near the edge of the dome, and skittered closer. The girls’ eyes bulged as they watched it, grins widening—when a tiny arc of electric death popped from the surface of the dome and tagged the rat. It shrieked, jumped into the air, and then fell to the ground.

  Margret always covered her face with both hands and giggled when she saw it twitch.

  “C’mon let’s go,” said Lyolee.

  “Why?” said Margret. “We just got here.”

  “I want to get a snack,” said Lyolee. “I promised Dee we’d meet him there.”

  “Ew,” said Margret.

  “Oh shut up,” said Lyolee. She got up and crawled over half a porcelain tub. Margret followed her.

  They clambered over the mountains of garbage for another ten minutes before they hopped down off an engine and landed on concrete. They heard a piano in the distance.

  “Dammit, it’s started already,” said Margret. There was a swarm of people at the gate. The market was open.

  Lyolee ran through the crowds of grown-ups. Hawkers, peddlers, suits and junkies all ignored the girls as they ran past. They may as well have been stray dogs.

  A dingy flag with yellowed letters hung between torn scraps of chain-link fence. It read “Armer’s Market” to recall the olden days.

  Margret loved the Armer’s Market. Everyone from the lowlands gathered into the city. They traveled hours and hours by foot, hauling carts of scrap metal and corrugated fiberglass, or even—treasure of all treasures—edible greens so delicate they lay limp as hair on the wooden tables. Margret always stopped to get a whiff of them, just a whiff before the hauler smacked her upside the head and told her to keep her grubby fingers away from his wares.

  All the riches of the dome were there for the city to enjoy. It was amazing how the Upward Cycle could create such wonders from devastation.

  “C’mere!” hissed Lyolee, tugging Margret’s jacket.

  Dee stood behind a piano in the center of the Market, keeping time on the low keys while an older boy tapped out a tune for the milling crowd. Lyolee dragge
d Margret back behind a cart. The two of them watched Dee and the older boy play the piano together, in the circle of stones in the center of the square. Folks swerved around them. They dropped money, or heckled, as the two kept playing in their own little dome.

  “Don’t lean, he’ll see you!” said Lyolee.

  Margret pulled her arm back from Lyolee’s grip. “So what? You started it.”

  “He’s really good, isn’t he?” She said.

  Margret glanced back at Dee. Lyolee was always talking about him. The way he looked, the way he talked, the way he played.

  Margret eyed a cart with a lowered awning over it. The tent flaps brushed the ground. She didn’t recognize it from the other markets. You had to know which sellers were mean, and which ones would look the other way if you stole a bite.

  Margret left Lyolee where she was, and wandered over.

  It was dark inside. There was a small carpeted space for customers to walk around, surrounded by three tables. The first table on her left held an array of stones and pebbles. The second table, to her right, had a bunch of little metal trinkets—broken forks and pipes that had moved upward in the Cycle to become objects of beauty rather than objects of use.

  The third table…oh, the third table. There were all kinds of things laid out on soft purple fabric. Boxes. Complicated spring contraptions. Yellow metal and silver polished so brightly Margret could see herself in them.

  “Hello, young miss,” said the man perched behind the third table.

  Margret hadn’t noticed him in the gloom behind the shining trinkets. He looked old. His clothes were thick and rumpled. He wore a headscarf that covered his forehead almost to the eyebrows. His skin stretched tight across his cheekbones and made his eyes bright. Repulsive was the wrong word. His face drew attention to itself—but handsome wasn’t the right word either.

  “Hello,” Margret said.

  “Did you lose your way?” said the Rumpled Man.

  “No, I wanted to ask you…” Margret glanced back at the glittering tools. A notched spoon for measuring. A knife with files and screwdrivers that stuck out like extra arms. Her eye lingered on a tiny box, turquoise, with little mirrors inlaid on the top and sides. “Why is your booth covered?” she asked.

  The Rumpled Man stared down at Margret as though she were a sniffing rat. She shrank back. No one ever paid more attention to her than it took to shoo her away.

  “The light is bad,” said the Rumpled Man. “You shouldn’t sit out in it. It’s pretty while it shines, but it’ll rot your skin. Cancer, young miss. Gotta be careful.”

  “What’s in that jar?” asked Margret, pointing to a vial of what looked like brown noses chopped from the faces of men.

  “It’s the Divine Cap, grown from filth, but when eaten, you see beyond this world,” said the Rumpled Man.

  “What’s that?” asked Margret, pointing at a walking stick with a gold ring and necklace hammered into it.

  “A more ambitious project,” said the Rumpled Man.

  “That’s not very interesting,” said Margret. “What have you really got?”

  The Rumpled Man nodded once, then turned and opened a tiny door in the cart. As soon as both of his hands were busy, Margret snatched the mirrored box and slipped away.

  A sweet seller was bending to hand treats to Lyolee and Dee. “One for Lyolee, and one for Dee,” he said. Then he turned to Margret. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  Margret tugged both of their elbows. “Gotta jam,” she said.

  The three of them trotted out of the Armer’s Market. They had almost reached the entrance when they heard a policeman shout. “You three! Stop!”

  The three children broke into a run. They wove through the legs of slow-moving shoppers and dodged around a bicycle. They heard the policeman coming up behind them, shouting for them to stop and blowing his whistle.

  They ran and ran. They made it across the streets back to their part of the city—where they could disappear into the nooks and crannies like mice.

  “What did you get?” asked Lyolee. Dee scooted up next to her, panting, with a big grin on his face.

  Margret took the box out of her shirt. They’d never seen anything as bright and vivid as the turquoise box. Tiny mirrors sparkled and lit up their faces.

  “There’s something written on it,” said Margret.

  “Lemme see, Lyolee,” said Dee.

  Lyolee held the box out to him, and he took it. He turned the box over. The flowing letters were inlaid with gold leaf. “It says… Tell me your name, and open me bold, I’ll transform your dream into coins of gold.”

  “Huh,” said Lyolee, taking it back from him. “Think there’s gold inside?” She fiddled with the box a moment, and then found the seam where the box met the lid. No sooner did she pry it open, she disappeared. The other two jumped back in alarm.

  The box clinked to the concrete and snapped shut.

  Margret and Dee looked at each other, then at the box.

  “Lyolee?” called Margret.

  “Lyolee!” called Dee. They looked around, but there was no sign of her. Margret swore.

  “What did you do?” asked Dee, kicking the box. It bounced off a brick wall and spun back toward them.

  “Nothing! This isn’t my fault!” said Margret. She bent and scooped up the box, brushing dirt off it.

  “We’ve got to get help!” Dee screamed. Margret knew what he was thinking. Maybe Lyolee had been snatched.

  “We can’t go to the cops, Dee, don’t be stupid!” said Margret.

  Dee shook his head, took a step back, and ran toward the eastern sector—to the police.

  He’s so dumb, she thought. They won’t be able to help us. Margret shoved the box into her shirt pocket. No sense wasting it—she’d pawn it off later that night when the shops are ready to close. She took off after him.

  Dee’s long legs carried him faster than Margret could match. They wove around adults and proper families, and shouts follow them. Watch where you’re going! Disgusting! Rotten kids! Dee didn’t slow down at the road even though the light was against him. Margret rounded a corner just as Dee entered the street. He took six long strides, and a sooty yellow car slammed its brakes.

  Bang!

  Dee’s body rolled—a limp and boneless doll. He came to a stop over a sewer, and black ooze began spreading from his head and chest.

  The cars kept moving until the policeman arrived. For him, they stopped.

  “You there! Did you see what happened? What’s your name?” he shouted, advancing on Margret. Behind the policeman, on the other side of the street, Margret saw the Rumpled Man.

  The Rumpled Man considered her with a frown. Then he looked at Dee’s body in the road. He drew a square in the air with two fingers, and took a similar box from his pocket. He raises his eyebrows significantly, and flips the box over.

  The policeman was getting closer. He kept asking Margret her name. She didn’t want to disappear. All the kids that the cops took were never seen again. Go, go, go! Margret screamed to herself. She slapped the policeman’s outstretched hand away, and ran for the junkyard.

  She ran for a long time. Panting, she ducked into an alleyway. She took out the box and looked at it. The Rumpled Man’s face leapt to mind, and she shuddered. She flipped the box over. On the underside of the box there were the same flowing letters, but in black rather than gold. It took her several minutes to sound out the words:

  Call me nothing, name me true; steal from me I’ll take from you.

  A creaky old voice drifted over from the other side of the ally. “Guess my name and you’ll get your friend back.”

  Margret squeezed the box in her hand. “Did you kill Dee? Was that your fault?”

  The Rumpled Man folded his arms and looked at her. “You’ve already gotten what you wanted. Guess my name, or I’ll keep your friend as payment.”

  “Victor.”

  The Rumpled Man smiled, but shook his head.

  Against her better
judgment, Margret decided to play along. “Taylor, Peter, Jack, Thomas, Vinny, Trey, Liwei!” She shouted. “Ralphie, Andre, Matt, Tyrone, Eric, David, Jay!”

  The Rumpled Man just grinned at her.

  Margret fumed, daring to step toward him. “Snitch, pansy, pizza-face, jerk, idiot, stalker! Moron, sissy, weirdo, freak, stupid psycho creeper!”

  The Rumpled Man lifted his chin and stroked it. “Thief,” he said.

  Margret was too angry to be scared. She ran, leapt and tackled the Rumpled Man. He fell back. The two of them wrestled. He reached into her shirt to retrieve the box.

  “Give me back my friends!” she screamed. “Give them back and you can have your stupid box!”

  The Rumpled Man yanked the box from Margret’s hands. She clamped her hands over his to stop him. As he looked down at her, his face twisted into a putrid smile. He opened the box, and disappeared.

  The box clinked to the concrete, and snapped shut.

  Margret screamed. She picked up the box and pounded it into the street. After a few minutes, she sat quietly as tears poured from her eyes.

  Should I open it? Suppose I become a prisoner. There’s got to be another way.

  Names were how they found you. Names were how they got you. She couldn’t go to the police. She had to find Lyolee herself.

  All that night Margret ran through the city looking for Lyolee. She went to the children’s shelter. She went to the shops and the alleys where they usually looked for food. She went to the gates of High Nob but couldn’t risk asking the guards. She asked other kids if they’d seen her. She looked and looked until the blue dome’s flickering light faded against the sky. Dawn.

  She wandered over the junk from the old time and sat at their spot. At this time, yesterday, she and Lyolee had sat and watched the rats die. They had watched the seagulls die. Before Dee died, they had laughed.