by T. K. Malone
Clay nodded.
“Reckon you can jump ‘em one at a time and get to the other side?”
“Reckon so, Mr. Saggers.”
“Do you think…” Teah made to say, but thought better of it. Like she’d reasoned earlier, Clay needed the push of a man, and so she waved them on. Saggers went first, helping Clay along the ledge and then encouraged him to leap across on the stepping-stones.
On the other side they found what looked like a small trail. Saggers thought it had been made by bears, but she didn’t know if he was pulling her leg or not. They stopped and rested, and he fished out a couple of smokes. Teah let the mellowness of hers smudge the boundaries of her guard just a little bit more.
“One last short climb up there,” Saggers said, pointing to a stack of flat, gray rocks that stuck out beside the waterfall, like a great pile of giant, weather-worn biscuits. “Makes for a decent set of stairs,” he said, and before the words were out of his mouth, Clay was up and running toward them. Saggers turned to Teah and smiled.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, regretting it straight away.
At first, he looked a little offended, but then his mouth creased to a smile. “Just being neighborly,” he said. “You remember that? Or don’t that fly in the city?” Jumping up, he took off his hat, whacked it on his leg a few times, straightened it out and popped it right back on his head. He looked down at her and frowned. “I guess not,” he said, and made a solemn face before chasing after her son. Clay was already well ahead, already climbing, but for a moment Teah only watched them both contentedly. Saggers certainly had a swagger to him, she thought, then he shouted over his shoulder, “Na, it don’t fly in the city.”
“Don’t bet on it, Ethan,” she shouted after him as she pushed herself to her feet and followed them.
When Teah got to the top of the climb, Clay and Saggers were well ahead, walking up a long rocky trail. It looked like a dried streambed, but she couldn’t be sure. They’d certainly climbed beyond the forest, for on either side of the trail lay nothing but scrub and a few bushes, but it all looked far too recent. Saggers held back for a moment to let her catch up.
“This is what I wanted you to see,” he said.
“What? A dry stream and a load of bushes?”
“No, not quite. Not so long ago, well, before I was born, a quake took out half this ridge. That’s why there’s no trees up here, and why you can see the city; see what you might be missing.”
“Why?”
His half laugh turned into a kind of dry chuckle. “Go look first,” he said, standing aside to offer the way.
Clay was already nearing the end of the stony path, to where it seemed to come to an abrupt end. Worried he might fall, she hurried after him, calling out his name. He didn’t even look around, just kept walking on, and so Teah ran, screaming at him to stop. Behind her, Saggers was shouting for her not to worry. Not worry? she thought, but Clay was heading for a fall.
She caught up with him just as he got to what she’d thought was the edge, but then saw that the ground carried on to a gray rock promontory, and here she gasped at the view it offered before falling to her knees.
“Is that what we’ve done to the world?” she whispered.
Spread out before them was the emerald forest that blanketed the mountains, but in the distance lay golden plains, stretching away to a far band of blue sea that filled the horizon. A black stain sprawled within that gold, though, right up to the sea: the Black City, its festering mass marring the beauty of the land about it. Brown fingers reached out from its far side to blemish the ocean’s sparkle with its stench of docklands and toxic sewer outflows. Teah inwardly shivered at the desecration.
From the city dark brown lines radiated out across the golden land, like the strands of a spider’s web, filaments that probably still fed the gluttony at its center. One ended at an array of concrete funnels that surrounded a vast building. Black smoke had once belched from them, drifting away over the city and out to sea. Others led away to farther stains, maybe to distant unseen cities, or to abandoned mines and quarries, no doubt to other abominations. Some went to the small towns she could see dotted about the plain, ones she knew to be deserted. It brought her to wonder how she’d managed to avoid being captured over such a distance, made her remember how she’d fought exhaustion, hunger and crippling doubt to find this place. Most of all, she wondered how the hell she’d resisted running back to Zac, to Connor.
“Why Clay?” Saggers asked. He was squatting on his haunches, hat tipped up, looking out at the view.
“What?” Teah said from the distance of her thoughts.
“Clay? Why Clay? After his father?”
Clay had crawled to the edge of the ledge and was now dangling his feet over the fearsome drop. He kept looking over at her, as though testing her trust, a trust she forced herself to give him.
“After two brothers,” she finally said.
“Was one the father?” but Saggers then coughed. “Smoke?” he said, as though he knew he’d overstepped the mark. “You wanna smoke? Don’t mean to pry.”
“Yes,” she said, taking a cigarette. “One was, though he shouldn’t have been. Him and his brother were very dear to me.”
“Him and his brother?”
“Yeah, Zac and Connor.”
“Should have chosen one of them.”
Should have? she thought, but that would have been an impossible choice, so she’d chosen both.
5
Teah’s story
Strike time: minus 4 days
Location: Aldertown
Smoke tainted the air, and dread filled Teah’s heart. At first she checked her stride, holding Clay back, thinking someone was about in the woods, maybe camping for the night, taking a load off down by the river, but its stench grew stronger. Soon its wispy gray fingers of patchy smoke were clawing around the vast trunks, rolling nearer. She grabbed Clay and ran. Saggers picked up his step, soon passing her.
Though still hidden, the crackle and spit of the fire told her it had taken a good hold and was gaining a hungry momentum. They were close to her cabin, but the dread had taken firm hold of her mind, the inevitable finally confirmed when she saw it, her pain at the sight only coming slowly.
She checked her stride, strangely curious at the sight of her home’s walls, roof and deck seemingly untouched, just copious amounts of smoke billowing through its open doorway and an orange flicker at its window. Then she just stood there, mesmerized by the calamity overtaking her. Where were her tears, she wondered? But her eyes were dry, like the dry wood of the cabin the flames were about to lick. Teah made to run forward, to do something, save anything she could, but Saggers held her back. Clay grabbed the tails of Lester’s old coat and then the cabin exploded, throwing them back as fiery splinters rained down around them.
Teah landed in a heap, Clay screaming a little way off to one side. She pushed herself up and her gaze searched him out. He lay face down, unmoving. “Clay!” she screamed as she dragged herself to her feet. The smell of burning hair, singed cloth and of smouldering leaves filled her lungs. Clay sat up, clearly dazed. Then his eyes shot wide open as he stared agape at Teah.
She looked back at the cabin, the air suddenly heavy, the flames now only quietly crackling, as though they too had been dazed by the explosion. There was little left but for the deck, part of a wall and most of the old stone chimney stack. The rest was now just a smoking ruin, the odd unenthusiastic flame flickering here and there. Beyond it all, through the haze of smoke, she saw a familiar man. Even at the distance she recognized his skinny and disheveled frame, his wide, boiled-egg eyes, as insane as the last time he’d looked at her, as wild as they’d ever been. He began to laugh and walked away, vanishing into the press of the forest’s trees as she stared after him.
“Shit,” she whispered, and realized Clay had crawled close to her.
“You all right?” she asked him. His face was black. A huge scrape had scrubbed the skin f
rom his cheek, leaving a welt. Tears worked their way through the blood and grime as he managed a nod, but then he pointed past her. She turned, only to whisper “Oh God, no” when she spotted Saggers. He lay prone on the ground, his body bent around the base of a sequoia, and before she knew it, she was kneeling at his side. “Still alive,” she breathed out in a sigh of relief, then a shiver ran through her.
Wary of the deranged Jake still being around, she grabbed Clay and pulled him close, then propped Saggers’ head on her thigh. Reassured by his steady breathing, she just sat and stared at the ruins of her cabin, at the embers of her new life.
Eventually, Saggers groaned. He’d been the nearest and taken the brunt. Clay’s pleading look mirrored her own: “What now?” then Saggers stirred.
“What the hell?” he groaned, wincing as he pushed himself up. “What kind of fire was that?”
“Huh?” Teah said, absently, engrossed in checking him over.
“Don’t worry about me. Had worse mishaps than being blown into a tree.” He stared in wonder at the ruins of her cabin. “That weren’t no real fire; that had a bit of oomph behind it. Gas most like. Hey, you don’t think…”
Maybe her expression had given it away, or maybe he’s just put two and two together, but he took a deep breath, pulled out a smoke and ruffled Clay’s hair. “Looks like you’re moving into town, young fella.” As if there wasn’t enough smoke in the air already, he blew out two blue funnels of it from his nose. “Unless you can recover some of your gear, we best get away from here before…” He looked at Clay. “Well, you know,” and wincing in pain, he pushed himself up the trunk of the tree. “Wild eyes, that dude. Had wild eyes. Was it him?”
Teah nodded.
“Then we’d best get out of here.”
He pulled Clay up and made to help Teah, but she waved him away and forced herself to her feet. “I think he’s gone. He’s made his point, let me know it was him, and now I reckon he’s gone,” but Saggers was shaking his head.
“He’s just getting started,” and he pulled Clay away, away from the ruins of the cabin and eventually out of the forest.
They made the town at dusk. Saggers had started stumbling toward the end. It was like he could smell his house and somehow everything he’d been holding together to get that close had begun to unravel. Only once they were by his fence did Teah notice the trail of blood. He finally tripped and fell, his determination to get home sapping the last of his strength. He had just enough energy left to drag himself along the fence until he sank to his knees. Teah went to help him, but he pushed himself back to his feet and staggered on a short way up the mud path to his house. He never made the door.
Teah knelt at his side. He was deathly white, hardly breathing. She turned to Clay. “Go get Hannah,” to which he only chewed his lip. Then he nodded, his gaze fixed firmly on Saggers’ side and the piece of timber sticking out of it, then turned and bolted. Teah tried to drag Saggers into the house, but he winced in agony until she gave up and just sat in the mud beside him and waited—and hoped.
“Just my luck,” he eventually groaned.
“What did you say, Ethan? No. No, don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“A scratch is all,” he coughed. “Only a scratch.”
“What’s your luck?”
“There’re some smokes in my pocket.”
“Sure?”
“Ain’t going to kill me. Besides, it’ll numb the pain a bit.”
Rummaging through his pockets, Teah found one and lit it for him, then pushed it between his lips. “So, what’s your luck?” Keep him talking, she remembered from back when she’d been in the stiffs. Keep them talking. Stop them going into shock. “Come on, Saggers, tell me: what’s your luck.”
“Mine,” he coughed. “I finally get you talking to me like I’m human, and we get blown up. Not the best start.”
Looking down at him, she wondered if he could be anything other than Saggers, but her thoughts were now ones she’d never allowed herself, thoughts that were for other people, people not like her. She had Zac, she had Connor, and she had Clay, enough men, surely, for any woman.
She heard Clay running back and the sound of people rushing, of hurried voices, and of anger and concern. Confusion, she thought, does that to folk. Pulled out of the way, Teah sought Clay and found him lurking at the back of the small group that now surrounded Saggers. He looked up at her, clearly confused, but Teah said nothing. Nigh on ten long years, and she was still a stranger here.
“What happened?” growled Ray Stubbs. Ray was Hannah’s partner, but had never made any effort to get to know Teah. Mid-fifties, he kept himself to himself mostly, that was if you didn’t hunt with a shotgun, or drink in the lean-too bar out the back of Trip’s place. She’d tried it once, gone there with Jenny, but they’d all just looked at her, tipped their hats and turned their backs. They thought a woman on her own was trouble, that had been plain to see, and maybe this day had proved them right. Saggers had only spent a few hours with her, and now look at him: all bent out of shape, bruised and bloodied.
“We were walking back to my cabin and… It… It just blew up.”
“Gas?” Ray said, his confusion plain to see.
She thought fast. To have had gas, she would have had to have bought it from here, something they would all have known she hadn’t done.
“Must have been some left over from whoever lived there before,” she said. “Never bothered myself.”
“Leave her be,” shouted Hannah, “and grab his arm. Help carry him in.”
Ray held Teah’s gaze for just a second or two, making an unspoken point, and Teah knew she was on notice, knew her lie hadn’t hit home. They carried Saggers up the path—Hannah holding a cloth over his bleeding side while Ray and Trip took an arm each and Ned grabbed his legs—and into the house. Teah and Clay came up behind, pushing their way through the gathering townsfolk who now filled the garden. Things like this never happened in Aldertown.
Not only did Saggers’ house have the only fence in town, it was also the largest. From the outside it looked quite stately, with its two floors and its pitched-tile roof, at least from a distance. Close up, you could see time had eaten away at its once proud past. Teah wondered what it must have been like out here before surviving became everything. The inside hadn’t fared much better. She followed the group through the paint-peeled front door and into a gloomy hallway. A shotgun rack to one side had a single occupant, a coat rack above it just a row of bare hooks. Curled and yellowing wallpaper and bare, stained plaster made for its only decoration, and a threadbare carpet, hinting at having once had a pattern of bright red threads, thinly covered the floor. A single light hung from the cobwebbed ceiling, taking advantage of the electricity supply that still reached here most of the time, unless the city had drunk it dry that day.
“Teah? Can you get me a bowl of water?” Hannah said, looking up at her. She was a few years younger than Jenny but had weathered much better. Her long, dark blonde hair was tied in a bun, but not in an austere way. Her bangs framed her high cheekbones, and her eyes still had that glint that told she had some living left in her. Of all the women Teah could’ve asked for, if not Jenny or Helen, Teah was glad she’d asked for her.
Water? Easier said than done, she thought. Before her were a flight of stairs that looked as though they’d not been used in an age, and beside it a corridor that probably led to a kitchen, the most likely place to find water. As she hurried down to find out, it struck her that the floor hadn’t been swept in a long time, nor the windows cleaned, of what seemed to have once been a kitchen. Nor did any of the pots she found scattered about look like they’d been scoured in an age. Clay came up behind her and tugged at her coat.
“What are all those?” he asked.
“Ethan’s smoking leaves,” she said, absently.
Everywhere, lengths of string ran from wall to wall, on which had been pegged rows upon rows of hanging leaves. The smell was overpowering, sweet but w
ith a flat edge, like the dried grass of the brush that surrounded the city. She dipped beneath it all and went to the back door. A looped twine served as both handle and lock, easily untangled before she pushed the door open.
In contrast to the house, the garden was well tended, almost regimental. It seemed the smoking leaf was not Saggers’ only crop. Though she couldn’t name all the plants, she saw runners, cabbage and squash. A gravel pathway ran down the middle and led to a standpipe, over which a bucket dangled. Teah breathed a sigh of relief. At least the outsider wouldn’t fail in her simple task. The tap squeaked and screamed as she turned it on, but its water flowed and filled the bucket. She looked down at Clay, but he was looking up and past her.
When she followed his gaze, she saw a flagpole poking up from the greenery at the end of the garden. Straight and proud, it carried aloft the Free World Flag, fluttering in the fresh breeze.
“What’s that?” Clay asked, but she turned him around, finished filling the bucket and ushered him back up the path.
“It’s nothing,” she said, “not anymore.”
“What was it, then?”
She stopped. “Everything, once,” and then she pushed him through the back door.
Of the men, only Trip was now with Hannah, who looked up from beside Saggers as Teah entered the room where they’d taken him.
“You found some, then?” she said. “Put the bucket down here. And take your hat and coat off. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without them on.” She dipped a cloth into the water and started cleaning Saggers’ wound. “It’s isn’t as bad as it looks, just a mighty splinter. He’s lost a lot of blood, though—shouldn’t have walked all the way back here. Come on, you can take over while I get ready to pull it out and sew him up.”
Kneeling beside Saggers, Teah dabbed at the blood that oozed from his wound with every breath he took. He looked gray, the kind of gray Lester had gone before his death, the gray Jenny was going, and he was sweating, as though he had a fever coming on. Hannah asked Clay to light some candles and get a fire going, and Clay sprang into action, as though his task was the most important thing in the whole world. Hannah knelt back and gave Teah a long look.
