The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

  “I shouldn’t have left school,” I say, dumping my pack and my words in a heap on the floor. My only hope is to control the conversation.

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” Mother says. She doesn’t sound angry. Why?

  She starts chopping something with a dull knife. Potatoes. I gawk at her, unable to feel my feet, like I’m floating. Who is this woman?

  Before I can consider the possibilities, Father pushes through the back door. “Hi, Adele,” he says, as casually as if school and work are meant to be over.

  “Why aren’t you at the mines?” I ask, more sharply than I intended.

  “Why aren’t you at school?” he counters, but a smile plays on his lips. His eyes disagree with his mouth, remaining downcast and tired, like he’s just woken up.

  “The school called,” Mother says, stirring a pot. “Adele was supposed to go to detention but she left.”

  God. Word travels fast. Mrs. Hill must have expected it. “I hate school,” I say. I hate people, I don’t say.

  “I know,” Father says, to my surprise. If Mother is a clone, Father is a robot. Where are my real parents?

  I stare at him. He stares at me, his smile gone. Mother nonchalantly stirs a pot.

  The unanswered question springs back into my head. “Father…why aren’t you in the mines?” I ask again.

  He sighs, scratches his head, looks more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. “Oh God,” I breathe.

  “They let me go,” he blurts out, turning to head back outside.

  “They what?” I say, following him onto the back patio, a familiar place where we’ve trained every morning for the past ten years. Now a place so foreign and frightening I barely recognize it. “You lost your job?”

  He nods. “I guess I stood up for one too many people,” he says.

  “Fix it,” I say, a knot forming in my stomach. People don’t just lose their jobs in the Moon Realm. There are always repercussions, especially when it’s related to a complaint.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can,” I protest.

  “It’s unfixable,” he says, and before I can contradict him, he throws a punch at my head.

  I duck, grabbing his arm and swinging a low kick at his legs, which he easily hops over. He lets me try again, this time with a hooking fist, but at the last minute he ducks and my momentum of my wayward punch spins me around. He grabs me from behind, trying to lock my arms, but I manage to twist out of it before his hands can get a good grip.

  I whirl around, my chest heaving, my blood flowing, my adrenaline higher than the dim and rocky cavern ceiling that arcs above us. I charge my father, aiming dual jabs at his chest.

  He grabs my arms, pulls me into him. I’m squirming and clawing and bucking…and then I hear it.

  A strange sound, low and guttural. A groan. I stop moving, listen to the slightly disturbing noise.

  “Adele,” Father says, hugging me, crushing my face into his chest. “It’s going to be okay.” That’s when I realize: the strange sound is me. Grunting and groaning and protesting the truth.

  “Nothing’s okay,” I manage to wheeze out, breathless. A hot tear spills down my cheek and I wipe it away angrily. “Nothing.”

  Father’s eyes are sad, and this time they match his lips, which couldn’t form a smile if we were suddenly rich and living in the Sun Realm. “Be strong, Adele,” he says. “For your mother, for your sister, for me, for yourself.”

  “No,” I say, even though I know I will. It’s the only way I can be. It’s the way he’s built me.

  “No matter what,” he reminds gently.

  I push away and go to bed early, eating my pathetically unfulfilling supper alone in the room I share with my sister and parents, wishing I was oblivious the world that’s about to end.

  And times races on and on and on, shattering stone and bones and lives, twisting fate into a blind whirlwind of grief and splintered moments.

  I awake to the sound of our front door slamming open.

  ~THE END~

  The Runaway

  Tawni’s Story

  Originally posted in Furthermore: an Anthology.

  Even when you know it’s the right thing to do, running away from home is never easy.

  Although my small bag is packed and dangling from my shoulder, my nondescript black boots are laced, and the door is open, I linger on the threshold for a moment, and gaze back at the house I’ve called home for as long as I can remember. Everything I see—from the flat-screen telebox, to the sturdy stone table, to the photos of my parents and me hanging on the wall—should be familiar, but it’s not. It’s as if I’ve never seen any of it before. Ever since I overheard my parents talking last week, my entire world feels foreign.

  I cannot wait any longer or I know I might change my mind. Swiping a long lock of straight, blond hair away from my face, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and try to muster what little courage I can.

  It’s such a normal thing, stepping through the door, something I’ve done a million times. But this time it feels so unnormal, like it’s not me, not my legs—someone else. Not me. When I close it behind me I feel an errant rush of wind through the cave; it washes over my face, my arms, through my hair, as if the unlikely breeze is cleansing me, washing away the sins that are mine by association. Having left the house in which my parents are still sleeping, I feel cleaner already.

  They’re not good people. I can’t stay here anymore.

  With practiced steps I zigzag through the rock garden in our front yard. Most moon dwellers can’t afford to waste perfectly good stones for decoration—but my parents are not most moon dwellers. Now that I know why my family is so wealthy amongst such poverty, seeing the polished and shiny stones makes me sick to my stomach.

  It’s still too early for the broad overhead cavern lights to be on, but I don’t risk illuminating my flashlight for fear of drawing the attention of one of the Enforcers that roam our subchapter at all times. This deep below the earth’s surface, we don’t get much electricity anyway, so I’m used to seeing in the dark. But still, I take extra caution with each step, being careful not to stub my toe or kick a loose stone.

  As I exit our walled-in property, I feel the pace of my heartbeat pick up. Although I’m walking slowly, my heart is racing. I might be walking, but in my heart I’m running away.

  I’m running away.

  I’m.

  Running.

  Away.

  The words feel prickly in my mind and I wince as the dull throb of a headache starts in my left temple. I feel a trickle of sweat slide intimately down my back beneath my gray tunic. Ignoring the sweat, my racing heart, and the icy stab of the truest words I’ve ever thought in my head, I take another deep breath, reposition my shoulder satchel, and walk faster, stepping on the tips of my feet to remain as quiet as possible.

  The night is quiet.

  The neighborhood I grew up in, played in, made friends in, disappears beneath the soles of my boots, like the cool night air vanishes in the wake of the wings of a bat. With each step I gain strength in both my legs and my heart. Another suburban block slides away behind me.

  My goal is to make it to the train station before the morning rush. Then, when the mass exodus of workers seeking work begins from our faltering subchapter, I might be able to blend into the crowds and escape the roving eyes of intra-Realm security. I bought my ticket in advance, which doesn’t require an intra-Realm travel authorization; however, when I go through security I’ll be required to provide my pass. Unfortunately, there’s no way a sixteen-year-old girl would be granted such authorization, so I was forced to hurriedly purchase a cheap fake from a shady guy at school.

  I hope it’ll pass the scrutiny of the security guards.

  Travelling intra-Realm without authorization is a serious offense that automatically requires time in the Pen, our local branch of the Moon Realm juvenile detention system. A lot of kids that go in there don’t come out alive. My best friend, Cole, got sent
there three months ago when an Enforcer tried to rape his sister. Cole killed the guy, but then his buddies killed Cole’s sister and parents. They sent him to the Pen for life.

  I still cry for him sometimes at night, especially after I get one of his letters and I miss him all over again. If I do end up in the Pen, at least I’ll get to see him.

  I’m not sure what I’ll do if I get out of subchapter 14. I guess I’ll just keep running, moving from underground city to underground city, until things cool off and my parents and the authorities forget all about me. Then I’ll try to make things right with the girl named Adele Rose.

  My thoughts are running amok and I know it, but I can’t seem to turn them off as I turn a corner, cutting a path through the back roads that will eventually get me to the heart of the city, where the train station lies. The strange route will add twenty minutes to my trip, but might protect me from the Enforcers.

  In the darkness of a rarely travelled street, I feel somewhat safe, which is the first lesson I’ll learn out on my own: you’re never safe.

  Feeling safe, I pass right by a stone stoop that sits just off the road at the front of a small house. There’s a flash of red in my peripheral vision and I jerk my head to see what caused it. That’s when I smell the bitter smoke from a freshly lit cigarette. My eyes zero in on the scene before me, taking in every awful detail before my brain can put it all together. Two men, both smoking, gazing off to the side, away from me, smoke curling around their heads. One of them is an Enforcer, dressed in bright sun dweller red, a gun and a sword hanging awkwardly from his belt as he sits on the steps, one knee raised higher than the other. An open door revealing the soft glow of candlelight.

  Engrossed in their own thoughts, they haven’t seen me yet, staring absently out onto the small front patio.

  You’re never safe.

  But I do have half a chance because they’re oblivious to my presence. My heart pounding in my chest, I back away slowly, retracing my steps in reverse, holding my breath as I move further and further from their field of vision.

  Three steps from safety.

  The non-Enforcer—a moon dweller who likely owns the house and trades cigarettes to the Enforcer in exchange for freedom from persecution—can no longer see me, as I move behind a wall.

  Two steps.

  The angle of the wall is such that I can still see the Enforcer, the crimson of his uniform like a warning beacon on the edge of my vision.

  One step.

  As if some inner instinct alerts him to my presence, his head snaps to the side and his black eyes lock on mine. He smiles.

  I run.

  Although I can’t see him, my ears pick up the scuff and scrape of his shoes on stone as he moves off the stoop. He’s not wasting any time coming after me, probably already feeling the excitement of the chase that will add some fun to his boring night. Maybe a juvenile girl breaking curfew is about the most excitement he ever gets, who knows? My only chance: get out of sight as quickly as possible. I might not be a fighter, but I am a runner.

  I hear a shout as I cut a hard right down an alleyway. It’s the obvious move, but the only one available. Lengthening my already-long strides, I abandon my quiet footsteps and thunder down the narrow path between the houses. The alley is longer than I’d like, and I know the Enforcer will enter it before I get to the end.

  Get out of sight.

  I listen to my own advice and swerve to the left, using a hand on the top of a chain-link fence to propel myself over it. Landing in a crouch on the other side, I make for a gap between the houses, cringing as I hear the rattling of the metal fence in my wake. I feel a sting of pain and warmth on my hand from the sharp barbs at the top of the fence, but I bite it back and dash to the front of the house.

  I don’t have time to open the front gate so I hurdle that, too, stumbling when I land awkwardly on the street. Keep moving, I urge myself, using my uninjured hand to catch my balance. From the property I just exited, I hear another shout, this one closer. Despite my efforts, the Enforcer is catching up.

  Doing my best to ignore a twinge of pain in my ankle and the burning in my hand, I sprint down the road, running faster than I ever have before, my breathing ragged and gasping, my heart like a jackhammer in my chest. Up ahead there’s an alley on the right and one on the left. Although it shouldn’t be, it feels like a crucial decision. Right or left. Freedom or capture. Neither feels right as I approach the intersection, but I lean toward the left and prepare to dive in that direction, hopefully before the Enforcer gets out onto the road.

  Just as I bend my knees and start to push off with my feet, I feel a rough hand grab a handful of my tunic and yank me hard to the right. Unless the Enforcer has been blessed with inhuman speed, it cannot be him; more likely it’s another Enforcer that I didn’t see or that was radioed in by his buddy. Either way, I’m toast.

  And then I’m in the alley to the right, a firm hand over my mouth, kicking and clawing and bucking like a wild animal, desperately trying to get loose. A harsh voice hisses in my ear. “Quit yer fightin’ or that Enfo will catch the both of us!”

  I have no reason to obey the voice, but instinctively I do. I guess I’ve just always been a rule follower, not one to disobey an order. The second I calm down, the hand moves away from my lips and clamps around my arm, urgently pulling me further into the alley and behind a dumpster. I try to get a look at my captor (hero?) but all I get is a flash of thick, long dark hair attached to a sturdy frame. He’s dressed in all black, nearly invisible even to my used-to-the-dark eyes.

  He turns to face me and I catch a glimpse of a very young-looking face, before he whispers, “Under here,” and throws a thick blanket over the both of us, casting us into darkness. “Get down,” he commands.

  I’m not sure how a blanket will protect us, but I have no choice but to trust this young stranger, who seems just as intent on avoiding detection by the Enforcer. I sprawl out on the rock alleyway, unconcerned with getting scraped and dirty. The guy with the young face is closer to me than I’ve ever been to a boy, and instantly I feel warm—hot even. The heat might have been slightly pleasant, if not for the putrid odor of rotting garbage that assaults my nostrils.

  But now is not the time to complain, so I do my best to breathe through my nose and remain perfectly still. We’re in place not a moment too soon, as we hear the pound of boots on rock, a pause, and then urgent footfalls heading right for us.

  They get closer and closer until I swear he’s about to step on us, and then stop with a suddenness that throws my heart into a frenzy. There’s heavy breathing and a grumbling voice. “If I find you, you freaking little blond-haired bitch, we’ll have a little fun before I turn you in, you mark my words. Damn strays, always making things harder than they have to be.” There’s a clang that almost makes me jump out of my skin as the Enforcer opens the dumpster lid. He’s literally right next to us, searching through the garbage in case we’re hiding inside. But why doesn’t he see the blanket with the two human lumps under it?

  After a few minutes of rummaging in the garbage, the lid slams shut with a frustrated bang! and the guy mumbles, “…might just have to kill you for putting me through all this trouble…” before scuffing away, his footsteps becoming more and more distant until they disappear into the night altogether.

  Neither of us move or speak for what feels like hours, our bodies close and warm and covered in a haze of nose-plugging odor.

  Finally, he speaks, his voice a low rumble under the blanket. “You okay?”

  It feels like such a strange question after the rough way he manhandled me to safety. And yet, I sense he’s not just being polite, but genuinely wants to know that I’m uninjured. “I think so,” I say, flexing my sore ankle to check for a sprain. It’s twisted, but not sprained. Definitely walkable. “I need to get going,” I add.

  “That guy will be back with more Enfos,” he says. “We need a better place to hide.”

  “Better than a blanket?” I say, no
t meaning to make a joke, but unable to stop my mouth.

  He laughs softly, which sounds even stranger under the circumstances. “It’s a special blanket,” he explains, which doesn’t explain anything.

  He stands up, simultaneously lifting the blanket off of me. The relatively fresh air hits my sweaty skin, immediately cooling it and raising goose bumps. “Here,” he says, offering a hand.

  I’m not one to deny a gentleman his small pleasures, so I take it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. It’s probably just my imagination, but his fingers seem to linger on mine for a split-second longer than is necessary. Ever so slightly, the world lightens, as dawn begins when the panel lights on the cavern roofs switch on. With the added light, I see his face for the first time. He is young, perhaps my age, perhaps a year or two older. He’s also indisputably handsome, with a strong jawline made rugged by the dark stubble of a three-day-old beard, dark brown eyes, and full, pink lips that appear to smile even when I know they’re not. When he tosses the blanket in a pile next to the dumpster, I realize why the Enforcer missed us. The blanket is covered in garbage, to the point where you can’t even see the fabric. With us under it, it would have just looked like a slightly bigger pile of trash, nothing worth investigating.

  “Very clever,” I say.

  “They only ever check the dumpsters,” the guy says. “They’ve got a lot of firepower, but they’re not too bright.”

  “I take it you’ve done this before?”

  He smiles, flashing a set of nice teeth. “You could say that. Let’s go inside.”

  “The door will be locked,” I say, pulling on the handle of a rusty metal door. As expected, it doesn’t budge. “See.”

  “Don’t tell me something as small as a locked door will stop a girl as motivated as you,” he says, laughing at me with his deep, brown eyes.

  I shrug, not knowing what to say. I’m too embarrassed to tell him I’ve never done any of this before.