The Dead Lands

by Benjamin Percy

  Lewis clears his throat and says, in the pause that follows, “You demanded my audience.”

  Thomas blearily observes him, then startles to attention. “Lewis.” Waves of water slosh when he lifts his arms in greeting. “I’m so glad to see you, so glad you could come.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Thomas dunks his head and works the soap from his hair and then rises sputtering. His face appears to sulk even when he smiles. A trail of gold hair drops from his belly button to his groin—otherwise his skin is as bare as an infant’s, maybe shaved. “Yes, well, you know how you are.”

  “Reluctant.”

  “Always busy. Always working. You never have time for old friends.” He turns to Vincent, who smiles at him curiously, his sponge oozing soap down his thigh. “Go away. Though I may call for you later.”

  Vincent climbs from the bath and wraps himself in a robe and splashes through the puddles on the floor on his way out. Thomas watches him go before eeling his way to the head of the tub, hooking one arm over the edge. On the ledge rests a tray piled high with baked grubs. He snatches one, pops it in his mouth.

  “There is no life without water, Thomas. That is the immutable law of the universe.”

  Thomas suckles the grub. “What are you getting at?”

  “Do you know how upset people would be if they knew you were taking baths?”

  Thomas makes a dismissive gesture, then lets the beak of the grub slip from his lips. It drops to the tray with a tick. “We recycle the water. Everything here will be bucketed into the gardens.”

  “How generous of you.”

  His eyes narrow and his voice drops to a whisper. “So have you done it?”

  “No.”

  “Have you even tried?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a lie. If you can build an owl, you can build a gun. You can build me whatever I ask for.”

  Thomas is right. Lewis is lying. He has not tried and he will not try. Three months ago, when someone began painting protest slogans across buildings, when a brick crashed through one of the Dome’s windows, when an effigy of the mayor was found floating in the sewage canal, Thomas approached Lewis about the possibility of black powder, of guns. Their forebears had thought it unwise, in such a contained community, to make it any easier to kill what few people remained in the world. And in the second amendment to their constitution, all rifles and pistols were destroyed. When Lewis reminded him of this, Thomas raised an open hand. “I know. I know what they said. But times are different. They had water. I need to be able to better control my people.”

  Thomas has never appeared physically threatening, but his mind has a shrewd capability for violence. Even when they were children, he knew how to hurt, placing a hand to the chests of those who wanted to be with him most, saying, “You may not play with me.” Now Lewis sees a similar sharpness in his expression, a barely controlled fury that twitches the corners of his mouth. “You wouldn’t want to see your precious museum closed, would you? Then all the knowledge would be left to those who know what to do with it. Men like us. The less people know, the better off they are.”

  “The better off you are, you mean.” Knowledge is a threat. Lewis is a threat. It isn’t the first time Thomas has mentioned closing the museum. There was even a motion to do so last month during a city council meeting—so that the space might be occupied, its many treasures repurposed—but it was struck down.

  Thomas says, “You are deeply unpleasant, you know that?”

  “Closing the museum is an empty threat. People would riot. It’s one of their only pleasures.”

  “It’s a shadowy junk pile, a haunted house. You’re the only one who takes pleasure in it.” Thomas is smiling, but he clenches his jaw as if to keep himself from swallowing something bitter. “What about your mother?”

  “What about her?”

  “I would hate it if something had to happen to your mother.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Death might actually be a favor. It’s not as if she knows whether—”

  “I said, shut up!” With that Lewis kicks the tray and it splashes into the bath and the grubs dirty the water and a small wave rolls into Thomas.

  The two men stare at each other for a long moment, and then Thomas’s severe expression breaks and a bright laughter overtakes him. The water ripples around him. “You know what I love about you? I can always count on you to speak your mind. That’s what I love about you.” He climbs out of the bath and water trails off his body and makes a silvery path on the stone floor. He pulls a towel off a shelf and wipes himself dry. He is a short man, the top of his head coming to Lewis’s shoulder. Though he is lean, he is also soft, cushioned, not a bone on his body visible. “You’ve heard about the rider?”

  “I have.”

  “A girl. Amazing. They say her eyes are as black as night.”

  “So they say.”

  “She’s a mutant. She’s poison. And when everyone hears about her—when they begin to dream about other worlds and doubt the wall—what then?”

  “It has nothing to do with doubting the wall. This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is why the Sanctuary has survived. Hope.”

  “You’re wrong. The Sanctuary has survived by keeping people afraid.”

  “You’re worried they’ll leave. Maybe they will. Shouldn’t that be their choice?”

  “We’re talking about the survival of the human race. Forty thousand people. I am responsible for them.”

  “The rider proves there are others. Maybe your responsibility isn’t so great after all.”

  Thomas throws the towel over his shoulder and goes to a window and looks out it and heaves a sigh. Lewis joins him there. From this high vantage, in the center of the Sanctuary, so much of the city can be seen, the topography of streets and buildings arranged around the Dome as if they have begun to orbit around a drain.

  Thomas lays a damp hand on Lewis’s shoulder and says, “Something bad has been coming for a long time, old friend, and I’m worried it’s finally here.”

  Chapter 3

  OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL a crowd gathers. Their low muttering is like the thrum of a hundred wasps’ wings. Their hats shadow their faces and their expressions twist through a range of emotions—dread, hope, disbelief, curiosity—refusing to settle on a single one. They want to know if the rumors are true. They want to know if a rider has come out of the Dead Lands.

  “Is she sick? What if she’s sick? They shouldn’t have let her in.”

  “Someone said her eyes were black. Like a doll’s eyes.”

  “They shouldn’t have let her in.”

  “You know what this means, of course? This means there are others out there. We’re not alone after all.”

  “Wherever she came from, it must be worse off than here. Otherwise, why would she leave it? Maybe she’s the first of many. People looking for help when we don’t have help to give. This is the beginning of some trouble; I can feel it. They shouldn’t have let her in.”

  Far from all these voices, deep within the hospital, in a stone room with no windows, she sits in a wooden chair. A lantern hangs from a chain and presses the shadows into the corners. Her face is hard-edged, sunbaked. She wears a doeskin vest and leggings, but no shoes, her feet as thick and gray soled as hooves. Her skin is deeply tanned, filthy except where her wounds have been dressed, the dirt and sweat and blood wiped away from her shoulder, her hand, her stomach, wrapped with cotton bandages. Her wrists remain bound. What looks like a white scarf is tied around her throat. A rose of blood blooms from it.

  There is a scarred metal table before her. On it Clark sets a bowl of salted sunflower seeds and a mug filled with water murky and warm, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind as she rushes it to her mouth and guzzles it down. Then she sputters and doubles over and brings her hands to her throat, to the place where the arrow pierced her. She does not emit a sound, gritting her jaw through the pain before righting herself and staring
at Clark where she leans against the wall and then at Reed, who sits opposite her.

  Clark demanded to be here. She berated Reed, calling him a fool, calling him reckless, calling him a failure. To allow this to happen. The arrival of this girl might be the most important thing that has ever happened to the Sanctuary, and he stands by with his mouth hanging open as his men pincushion her with arrows. Clark said she would speak to the girl and he conceded to her then just as he conceded to her in bed, letting her take the lead, telling him where to put what and how fast or slow to move.

  Clark will take care of the questions. She will ask them kindly. She will try to make the girl forget about her injuries, and she will try to distract her from thinking about the fate that awaits her. Clark has no doubt that the mayor will isolate the girl, pervert the situation, use her to his advantage. There isn’t much time.

  The girl’s eyes, black and empty, seem to look through them. Many in the Sanctuary are born with deformities—cleft lips, stunted legs, misshapen skulls—blamed on the radiation, the same as the cancer that afflicts so many. But Clark has never seen anything like this. The girl appears insectile, as if she were less than or more than human.

  “She’s not sick?” Reed says.

  Clark says, “Of course she’s not sick. No one’s sick anymore. That’s all in the past. You know damn well that’s just a ghost story meant to keep people afraid.”

  “Maybe so, but still, I’m asking. You’re not sick, are you?” He asks this with the half-joking, half-worried tone of someone who says, “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

  The girl shakes her head, no. She cannot speak. Her injured throat makes even breathing difficult.

  They lay a sheet of paper and pen before her. She makes no move to pick it up. “Please,” Clark says. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m sorry you’re hurt. Not everyone here is a friend. But I am. And if I’m going to help you, I need to understand why you’re here.”

  There is a long pause—punctuated by another please from Clark—and then the girl slowly and clumsily picks up the pen. She can write. Not very well and not very fast, maybe because her dominant hand is injured or maybe because she is unpracticed. Literacy is never a given in this time. Her writing looks like a bird’s scratching, and her eyelashes, bleached from the sun, like little feathers.

  Clark asks for her name and she writes, Gawea. Clark asks how far she has come and she writes, Far. Clark asks where she has come from and she writes, Oshen.

  Reed says, “Impossible.”

  Clark shushes him and then asks the girl where, what part of the ocean, and she writes, Oregon.

  Reed shifts in his chair, wanting to say something but holding back.

  Clark speaks, with hopefulness rounding her voice, “Describe it.”

  Her pen scratches paper. Fish. Lots of rane. Grene gras. Apals. Blakbary. Mowntins.

  This is enough to silence them for a long time, the thought of a place where clouds share the sky with the sun, where rain falls every week and fills rivers and lakes darting with trout. The trees weighed down with apples red, green, and gold. Corncobs growing to the size of a man’s forearm. The woods tangled with blackberries, their juices and your blood oozing together as you fill a bucket and gladly risk the threat of thorns.

  The girl’s eyes might be alien and remote, but her face is earnest and pleading. She believes in what she is telling them, and that makes Clark want to believe too. It is as if, like some seer, the girl has sketched to life a dream she thought was hers alone.

  Help me, she writes.

  Reed has not washed up or changed out of his ranging gear. His hat is in his lap and his face looks like the cracked remains of a mud puddle. When he leans forward, laying his hands flat on the table, his leather vest creaks. Normally his posture is straight, but this afternoon his body appears bowed, the shape of a question mark. At moments like this Clark can’t help but consider him weak. He should be taking orders; she should be in charge. His voice is hushed when he says, “How can we help you? Why are you here?”

  Sent.

  “By whom?”

  Burr.

  Reed says, “Who is Burr?” at the same moment Clark says, “Why were you sent here?”

  The girl’s attention flits between them, then settles on Clark. Brot letter. Letter tels yu.

  “Letter?” Reed says over the top of Clark saying, “What letter? We searched your horse—there was no letter.”

  Letter for—

  At that moment the door crashes open and the sheriff, Rickett Slade, fills the doorway, and then the room, the space seeming smaller. He moves swiftly for such a big man. He does not pause to acknowledge any of them but stalks directly to the girl and pouches a hand behind her head and slams her face into the table and knocks her unconscious.

  Slade breathes fiercely through his nose. Clark can never tell where his eyes are looking, pocketed as they are into his face, but he seems to regard them both at once. “I will take it from here,” he says. “You are excused.”

  “On whose authority?” Clark says.

  Slade says, “Your girl has a mouth on her, doesn’t she?”

  Before Reed can respond, Clark says, “I said, on whose authority?”

  “As always, I speak for the mayor.”

  * * *

  Heavy brown curtains choke away all but a cool white line of moonlight running down their middle. There are no paintings on the walls, no decorations on the bureau except for a single short candle sputtering on an iron tray, illuminating this room in the upper stories of the museum. There are, in abundance, books. Some yawning open. Some closed with a ribbon or feather marking his place. Stacked along the walls, piled and tiered across the floor, like their own kind of furniture.

  Lewis stands between the room’s two narrow beds, his own empty, the other occupied by a woman. Her body is so slight it barely dents the blanket that covers her, tucked all the way to her chin. Her downy white hair twists across her pillow like the silk from a split milkweed pod, and Lewis runs a comb through it now. His movements are delicate, with first the comb, then his fingers, as he untangles the snarls, neatens her hair into a white halo that surrounds her ruined face.

  His mother suffered a stroke three years ago, and since then, he has cared for her as she once cared for him. He was so often sick as a child—wracked by fevers that sweated into his mattress the imprint of his body—and many of his memories are of her hovering over him in the dark, laying a cool washcloth on his forehead, humming lullabies.

  Now the left side of her face appears melted. She sometimes yammers at him, as if reciting some foreign alphabet, but mostly she remains still and silent, propped up in a chair, curled up in bed, sleeping with one eye closed, the other half-shuttered.

  He sets down the comb on the night table between their beds and picks up the vial from Oman and uses a dropper to squirt some of the tincture into her mouth. It is meant to increase brain activity, speed recovery. Whether it works, he does not know and does not particularly care, as long as he is doing something for her. She smacks her mouth at its bitterness and regards him with her one good eye. He gives her a pained smile.

  The owl, too, sits on the bedside table like a little brass clock. When Lewis sets down the dropper, he notices beside it a letter. It is sealed with a red circle of wax that bears the imprint of what looks like an eye.

  “What’s this?” he says and tears open the letter. He holds it before a candle whose flame trembles like his hand as he reads.

  The entry to the museum is a fanned set of stone stairs. Lewis rushes down them with the letter in his hand and then secreted up his sleeve. He pauses for a moment on the sidewalk, listening to the small sounds of the city at night, the groaning of the wind turbines, before hurrying in the direction of the prison—where he knows the rider is being held—and where he does not plan to sign in with the guards or request permission to speak with their prisoner. In his gray duster he appears yet another shadow sliding a
long the street, and he has ways of making himself unseen, of distracting and then sliding past whoever might block his way.

  He does not know what hour it is—he has trouble keeping track of time—but guesses it late, the streets empty. There are no lamps lit. The buildings are stark and silver-gray. Beyond them the black mass of the wall rises into the less-black sky, and above it hangs a half-moon, the shadowed side of it visible, but barely.

  He has so many questions. He tries to keep them straight in his head, but they crawl all over each other and merge into a swarming mess like so many fire ants. It is because of his distracted state of mind that he does not notice the two men charging out of an alleyway until they are upon him.

  The last thing he sees, before they drag a bag over his head and carry him bodily away, are the black sacks that shroud their faces.

  It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. At first he can see only blackness interrupted by the four torches flaring around the room—as if he is floating through some region of outer space lit by many competing suns—and then the room begins to take shape.

  He knows he is underground, from the staircase they dragged him down, the steadily cooling air, and its sulfuric, mushroomy smell. The floor is crumbling concrete. Square stone pillars are staggered throughout the space, the basement of some store that must have once sold children’s toys. There are heaps of rusted bicycles and baby strollers, a life-size clown with hair made of red yarn, moldy stuffed bears, shelving units full of video game consoles.