The Divide

by Jeremy Robinson

  “A history?” Dyer says. “You can read it?”

  “In a way,” Salem says, pointing high. “See that dark band, way up there? That was probably created during a time of volcanic activity, or even a meteor crash.”

  It’s all very interesting, and I enjoy hearing Salem explain things, but the planet’s history isn’t going to help us cross the Divide or scale the far side. I sit down on a flat stone and give Shua a swat. “You want to get my pants off. Well, now’s your chance.” When I start tugging down my clothing, Shua blanches.

  “To stitch me up,” I add.

  Dyer stands behind Shua, a kind of shocked smile on her face. “Too many jokes. There’s just…”

  She shakes her head and sits down beside me. “Better clean me up, too. We don’t want all those bastards out there getting a whiff of us. They’d react like we’re a couple of bitches in heat, and we both know only one of us is.” Dyer nudges me with her elbow.

  I’m about to tell her to stop when I see Shua’s face turning red and decide I’m enjoying her banter. He’s digging supplies out of his pack—bandages, needle and thread, ointments—trying not to look either of us in the eyes.

  “Just leave the arm,” Dyer says, glancing down at the wounded, blackened flesh. “It stinks, but like them. Could help mask us.”

  It’s a horrific, but good, idea.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  “Actually…” She bends her arm, then taps the wound with her hands. “Can’t feel a thing.”

  “Okay,” Shua says. “Who wants to let me poke them with a needle first?”

  Dyer quickly derails Shua’s attempt at a verbal jab with, “I’m glad you’re up front about your size.” She nods toward his crotch. “Otherwise, she’d be disappointed.”

  “There’s no surprises down there,” Shua says, and it’s my turn to be embarrassed.

  And Salem’s. He’s ten feet away, sitting with Del, still looking up. “Seriously. I’m right here.”

  Dyer chuckles. “Don’t act like you and Del haven’t—”

  Del raises her hands. “No! Don’t. Nope. Leave me out of this.”

  I’m smiling when Shua slips the needle into my leg, but it’s gone by the time he’s finished.

  Dyer inspects the stitching. “Word to the wise, don’t let a sexually frustrated man stick his needle in you. That’s going to scar.” Dyer lifts her shirt, revealing a tight stomach and a long cut. Only the middle of it is deep enough to require stitches, but it soaked her clothes in blood. We’ll both need to change and leave our garments behind.

  Shua leans down with a needle and thread, but Plistim grasps his arm. “Stop!”

  When all eyes turn to him, he says, “We don’t know if…this—” He points to the black wound. “—is in her blood. She needs to stitch and clean herself.”

  Dyer looks down at her stomach. “I’ve never stitched skin in my life, let alone my own stomach.”

  When no one poses an alternative, Plistim deflates a bit. “Then I will do it.”

  “Father,” Shua says, but he’s stopped by a raised hand.

  “My life has been long. My children are grown. I will accept the risk.”

  “You realize that you’re talking about not becoming like me, right?” Dyer says, still joking. “And that ‘like me’ means a slow painful transformation into a Golyat unless someone takes your head off.”

  “Apologies,” Plistim says, taking the needle and thread from Shua. “It will also let us know if the effect is transferable before a person has become fully Golyat.”

  “Hurrah for learning,” Dyer says. “Now stick your tiny needle in me and let’s get the hell through this death valley.”

  “I’m confused,” Salem says.

  Dyer winces when Plistim pokes the needle into her skin, but manages to say, “That’s a first.”

  “You both keep talking like the Golyats are still with us, but—” He points to the dizzying heights above. “They’re up there, where they’ve been for five hundred years. We’re safe down here.”

  “Umm.” Dyer looks at me. “I’ll let you take this.”

  I’m a bit surprised when Salem, Del, Shua, and Plistim turn to me, waiting for my answer. “Did none of you look down?”

  “‘Don’t look down,’” Salem says. “That’s what you told me when I was young and you wanted me to climb trees. So I didn’t, and I don’t.”

  I turn to Shua, my eyes asking, ‘you too?’ and his response is a classic Shua shrug. I motion to the valley beyond us, irritated. “Well, look now!”

  We’re still a good hundred feet above the valley floor, needing to descend the hill of stone before reaching it, but the giant shapes of Golyats aren’t hard to make out. What I can see from here, that I couldn’t see from above is that many of them are partially embedded in the ground, either sinking in over time or falling from above.

  “Oh,” Plistim says. “Oh my…”

  “Those are all Golyats?” Del asks. “There must be hundreds of them.”

  “Thousands,” I say. “It looked like this for as far as I could see in either direction.”

  “Do you think they’re…” Del looks down at her quiver of five arrows. She knows as well as I do that if even one of them is alive, there won’t be anything we can do.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dyer says. “That’s where we’re going. No sense in getting worked up about it. Now…” She pats her injured stomach. “Finish stitching me up, let’s do something about our stink, and move out. The sun might have already set in the Divide, but the sky will be blue for a while yet.”

  “We can reach the far side by nightfall,” Shua says, trying to sound positive. “Start our ascent in the morning.”

  Not one of us wants to spend the night in the Divide, surrounded by Golyats that might or might not be dead, but scaling the far side, in the dark is impossible.

  Plistim goes back to work on the stitches, and fifteen minutes later, Dyer and I are clean and dressed in the fresh, loose-fitting fabrics of the Modernists. Our wounds have been covered in ointment and bandages that mask the scent of blood. Since both of us are wounded, we’re not required to carry gear, or the one remaining stretcher of rope.

  Despite my painful wounds, walking without carrying a heavy load is a welcome reprieve. We descend the stone hill without incident and step onto the hard-packed, almost desert-like valley floor. Rock dust from the cliffs have filled the valley, wrapping around the great bodies that fill it.

  We slow as we pass by the first Golyat. Its body lies in a twisted manner, likely where it landed. While its flesh and bone remain, the spines on its back jut out in two different directions, revealing a break. The creature’s arms are mostly buried, as is the side of its face. Sand fills its open mouth, its black eyes covered in grit.

  Who were you? I wonder. Were you a man or a woman? What did you do? How did you live? How did you become this?

  Where I normally feel horror upon seeing a Golyat, I now feel sorrow. To die at the hands of a Golyat is…unimaginable. To become one, knowing you’ll kill and devour everyone around you…that’s worse.

  I glance at Dyer’s arm, protruding from a thin shirt she called a ‘tank-top.’ The black has spread beyond the bandage.

  How much longer does she have?

  Before I can guess, a slice of white amidst the Golyat’s black flesh catches my attention. It only takes a moment to recognize the very human-sized, sun bleached bones scattered atop the Golyat. That’s what the white speckles were, I realize, remembering the view from above.

  I scan the area around us, eyes open for more than just giants, and spot the dead scattered all around.

  “Shit-stained cupcakes,” Dyer whispers, looking around.

  The group grows tense, as one by one, we all see the human dead.

  “They must have fallen,” Shua says. “Or jumped. The Golyats followed them in.”

  The idea of all these people leaping into the Divide with the intention of luring Golyats in
after them shifts my opinion of our ancestors a bit. Maybe they weren’t all mindless, placid, do-nothings? Maybe some of them were brave, and bold, and sacrificial. I look at all the dead around us. Not just some…many.

  “But they cover the Divide,” Salem says. “Both sides. Not even a Golyat could jump across.”

  The observation triggers an epiphany. “This is how New Inglan was cleared. They didn’t just seal the counties off from the Golyats’ advance, they sealed it off and then purged the creatures. They would have fallen from up there,” I point to the New Inglan side. “And there.” I point to the cliff behind us, and freeze.

  The orange line is barely visible now. If it weren’t for the lone figure sliding down, I would have never seen it. I lower my finger toward the fast moving person.

  “Who…is that?”

  42

  “No one we know,” Del says, eyes squinted.

  I’m pretty sure that if the eagle-eyed Del can’t identify the distant figure descending the cliff with what looks like reckless abandon, none of us can.

  “Should we go back?” Shua asks. “Or wait here? Our tracks shouldn’t be hard to follow.”

  He’s right. While walking through the valley of death, we’ve kept quiet and masked our scent, but haven’t bothered to hide our footprints. Why would we? We’ve been leaving a visual trail since landing.

  “Or I can wait,” Del says. “And you all go ahead. Reach the far side and set up camp before it’s dark. I’ll catch up with…whoever that is.” Del eyes the cliff. “I think it’s a woman.”

  I’m not sure how she could even tell that from here. Whether or not she’s right, her plan has merit.

  “We’re not leaving you behind,” Salem says, crouched by his backpack, searching through its contents.

  “I know,” Del says, a little annoyed. She motions at the valley around us. “Because there’s nowhere for you to go that I can’t follow. And if a Golyat wakes up it will be because of you all, not me.”

  I smile at her confidence, but lose it when Salem pulls an odd-shaped device from his backpack. I recognize the two black cylinders, attached at the middle, as being from the bunker, but I don’t understand its function any more now than I did then.

  “We can use these,” Salem says. “To see who it is.”

  “What is it?” Dyer asks, snagging the device, looking it over.

  “They’re called binoculars,” Salem say. “They let you see over great distances.”

  Dyer holds the binoculars up to her eyes. “Can’t see shit.”

  She nearly tosses them, but Salem says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” takes them back, and plucks a black circle away from each end of the two cylinders. “You have to take the caps off.”

  Salem raises the binoculars to his eyes, and I see round glass embedded in the middle of the larger side. “You’re looking through them?”

  “The glass lenses bend light, magnifying everything.” Salem twists a knob on the top and then slowly scans the distant cliff. He’s smiling now. I don’t know what he’s seeing, but the device must be working. He wouldn’t be smiling otherwise. Then he freezes. “I see her. It is a woman…but…” He lifts his eyes from the binoculars for a moment, and then looks through them again. “…I’m not sure who.”

  “Then you can’t see her well after all?” Plistim asks.

  “I can see her fine,” Salem says, his smile gone. “I just don’t know who she is.”

  Before anyone can ask for elaboration, or ask for a turn, I emulate Dyer, taking the binoculars from my son and raising them to my eyes. I stumble back, momentarily disoriented by the dramatic shift in perspective.

  “Find the top of the cliff,” Salem suggests. “Then the rope, and work your way down.”

  His advice, not surprisingly, is sound. I scan up until I find the top of the cliff and the forest. Despite the great distance, I can see the texture of bark on trees and even a squirrel leaping from one to another. Keeping the cliff in view, I move slowly left and have no trouble spotting the bright orange line. Then I shift down, following the path.

  Then I spot her. The first thing that strikes me is how fast she’s moving. Instead of pushing off the wall and sliding down in big leaps, she’s all but running down the cliff. One arm is stretched back, holding the rope, the other is tucked under her waist, which I can’t see because she’s descending face-first, but no doubt also holding the rope. Her hands are covered in black gloves that match the rest of her tight-fitting black garb.

  Why is she dressed in all black, in the summer? I think, and then I answer the question without asking it aloud. Because she travels at night.

  In the darkness of night, the only part of her that would be easy to spot is her hair, even more than her speed, and that’s what catches my eye and holds my attention. I’ve never seen hair like it. The yellow, almost-white color is spectacular. A few shades lighter than a mountain lion’s coat, but long, flowing and wavy. Everyone in New Inglan has tan skin and black hair. On rare occasion, there might be a child with brown hair, but it conforms by adulthood. And while hair can be brushed out straight, it never really moves like this woman’s. Where my hair is stiff, hers appears to bounce and dance in the wind.

  It’s the hair alone that fuels my next statement. “None of us knows her.”

  Plistim grunts, waving a hand at me, asking for the binoculars. “We knew everyone who came with us.”

  I take my eyes away from the glass. “You’re missing the point.” I hold the binoculars out to him. “She didn’t come with us.”

  Salem’s eyes widen. He’d seen her, and didn’t recognize her, but hadn’t considered the possibility.

  Plistim peers through the binoculars, repeating the same steps that led me to the woman. When he stops, it takes just a moment for him to drop his jaw. “She is a stranger to me.” He lowers the binoculars. “She is from beyond the Divide.”

  “We should go,” Shua says, ever cautious. “After crossing the river, we can cover our tracks, conceal ourselves in the rocks overnight, and head up in the morning.”

  “Puss,” Dyer says. “Why hide?”

  “We don’t know her intentions,” he says.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Dyer says. “But we’re pretty bad ass. Between the six of us…” She turns to Salem. “Well, five of us, we’ve killed just about every living creature that walks the land, including a frikkin’ Golyat bear. So if she’s following us with anything other than good intentions, she’ll regret it.”

  It’s a good point, but not without risk.

  “I’ll stay behind with Dyer,” I say. “Neither of us is needed to complete the mission.”

  “I should stay,” Shua says.

  “We’re both injured,” I remind him. “And one of us has to climb all that—” I point to the cliff ahead of us. “—without the help of a rope. That’s you, big guy.”

  “Agreed,” Plistim says, returning the binoculars to Salem. “Dyer and Vee will stay behind to determine the woman’s intentions. If you detect even a trace of deceit, savagery, or Golyat influence—”

  “I’ll take off her head,” Dyer says. “Just as soon as someone gives me a weapon.”

  I glance at the others. Each carries just one blade, and Del her bow with five arrows. They might not need the weapons down here in the valley, but heading back into New Inglan without weapons would be foolish.

  “Take this.” I draw and hand my machete to Dyer. When Shua is about to object, I draw my ancient KA-BAR knife and spin it in my hand to show my familiarity with the blade.

  He closes his mouth, sighs, and says, “Just be careful.”

  “When am I not careful?” Dyer says with a grin.

  “That was a joke, right?” Shua says, sliding into his backpack. “It’s hard to tell with you sometimes.”

  “Meh,” Dyer says with a shrug. “We’ll see.”

  Shua taps Del’s shoulder. “Take the lead. Salem behind you. Then Father. I’ll follow. Let’s go.”

/>   Del nods and starts off. Salem hesitates a moment and then follows.

  “We know nothing of the people beyond the Divide,” Plistim says. “Caution is paramount.”

  Dyer doesn’t joke this time. She just nods and faces the cliff behind us.

  As Plistim heads away, Shua approaches. He looks about ready to lecture me, or add another word of warning to Plistim’s. When he’s just a few steps away, I halt him with a raised hand. “I know what I’m doing. I don’t need advice, and I don’t—”

  Shua catches me off guard, covering the distance between us in a final step, wrapping his hand behind my head and placing his lips against mine. The kiss is awkward and stiff until I realize what’s happening and relax. In that moment, I realize that his lips were the last mine touched, all those years ago when Salem was conceived. Feeling them again now transports me to that night, to the raw affection I felt. I know now that his passion wasn’t fueled by alcohol, but by the knowledge of who I was and what I meant to him.

  And now that I know who he was, and who he became, I am able to return his affection with my own. I push against him, pulling him tighter, long dormant desires waking.

  “Holy fuckcakes.” Dyer looks back, smiling as we separate. She’s unimpressed by our affection, focusing instead on her colorful language. “Mixing things up. What do you think?”

  “Did you actually see something?” Shua asks.

  “Well, yeah. That kind of language doesn’t work out of context.”

  Shua takes a deep breath, calming himself, more from the kiss than impatience. “Then what did you see?”

  Dyer points to the valley’s far side. “She’s at the bottom.”

  “Already?” I say, spinning around. I find it hard to believe, but the yellow-haired woman is easy to see, leaping her way down the rocky slope toward the dusty floor below.

  “Go ahead,” I tell Shua. “We’ll be fine.”

  He pauses just a moment, and then gives a nod before heading off.

  I watch the woman with Dyer, both of us silent for several minutes. Then she looks back, as though checking to make sure we’re alone. “So,” she says. “You’re going to ride that, right?”