The Footsteps of Cain

by Derek Kohlhagen

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  Chapter 6 – Samuel

  If there was one person that might be recognized as the leader of the people huddled so precariously close to extinction at the Spire, it was Gorman Wade. Samuel had learned much about him over their years together.

  Gorman hadn’t even yet reached his twentieth year when he’d found the Spire; this fact was a common thread between himself and Samuel, and it had bonded them strongly together. He’d been raised by his mother, a farmer, in the wasteland before the Great Drought had sucked all the moisture out of the ground and killed the crops. After the wells dried up, they made plans to leave their home and follow the water to more forgiving climates without even knowing if any remained.

  That was when the sickness struck. Gorman’s mother was lost to it within two months. It is a horrible and fortunate truth for him that youth becomes a casualty in desperate times; horrible because of the obvious, and fortunate because when he found himself alone in a hostile world, he was able to shoulder the weight of his own survival. In the rare times that he would speak of it, Gorman said that he was never really sure how long he’d wandered through the arid desolation of the Wastes, alone, delirious from dehydration and malnutrition, before his eyes found the great drill of the Spire on the horizon. But, when he’d entered the great gate he’d known that it was a place he belonged.

  He knew nothing of political ambition, yet over time found himself nonetheless ushered into a role of leadership by those around him. In the early days of his time there, the Spire had been a spawning ground of anarchy, with most of the people struggling against one another for control of what meager resources the facility produced. There was violence and death, and a great blanket of hopelessness covered the minds and hearts of all living within the walls. Having come from a place where perseverance came only through cooperation, interdependence, and good hard work, Gorman had been infuriated by the sight of the people squandering their opportunities. And so, he began to travel among what then could barely be called a community, meeting with the people and galvanizing them with his message of hope and hard truth.

  When Gorman spoke, people listened. It was just that simple. He was decisive and bold, yet also warm and sympathetic. As time had passed, the spirit of his message had irrigated the consciousness of the people, and their eyes were opened to their own foolishness. A great many of them chose unity over despair. As for those who couldn’t...they were cast outside the wall, where their squabbling could only poison themselves.

  A group of six of the most influential, trusted people were chosen—he among them—to form the Council...the governing body of the Spire. They’d originally suggested that Gorman take the presidential role and rely on the five others as mere advisers, but he would have nothing of it, preferring instead to collaborate with them rather than place all power in the hands of a single person, even if that person was himself.

  It had been that way ever since.

  Although there were always great threats to morale caused by shortages of food, water, and shelter, Gorman had long been the rock, the great heart and hub that held the Spire together. It was said that as long as he walked among them, they could weather any storm.

  Beloved by the people, he had helped lead the people of the Spire for nearly thirty-five years. Samuel had called him “father” for twenty-eight of them.

  Samuel walked into Gorman’s office, which also served as his living quarters. At a glance, it was obvious that the space was meant more for work than for comfort. The room could not have been plainer; a simple, single bed in the corner, a cramped bathroom in the back, and a large metallic bookshelf set against the far wall filled with many very ancient-looking books with faded covers. The names of long-dead authors were inscribed on their spines.

  The wall that faced the Wastes was one big window, affording the room a bountiful supply of light and a broad view, despite the horrible scenery outside. (There was no good perspective of the Wastes beyond the great walls.) The western cliffs loomed in the distance like a bottom row of craggy, uneven teeth.

  Gorman himself was huddled at the worn, oak desk set in the middle of the room, poring over a small stack of fresh print-outs. Long, silver hair fell from a full scalp into his sun-weathered face as he rested his chin on a fist in the classic pose of a man deep in thought. He looked up as Samuel approached, and his neatly trimmed beard split into a huge grin. Gorman stood, and Samuel could see that he was dressed in his usual, plain gray dress robes. His father wouldn’t be caught dead in any sort of flashy, ceremonial garb to show off his station. He was far too pragmatic, self-aware, and critical of what he would consider useless self-adornment. He’d said on many occasions that if anybody wanted to know who he was, they needed only to look at his face.

  Gorman rounded the large desk with a dexterity that defied his sixty-two years, and caught Samuel up in a firm embrace that all fathers are supposed to reserve for their children. Samuel returned it wholeheartedly, and felt the tension in his head and shoulders melt somewhat.

  “Sam, my boy,” Gorman said, warmly, as they hugged. “My life is full of too many meetings on hydroponic output and moisture harvests. I fear they’ve kept me too long from seeing your face.”

  They broke their embrace, and Gorman held Samuel at arm’s-length by his shoulders. Immediately the older man’s face morphed into a mask of concern when he saw the dark cloud in Samuel’s eyes.

  “Ah, now, I’ve seen that look before,” Gorman said, frowning slightly. “It’s similar to the one I saw on your face when we first met. I fear you are here to bring me some bad news. Should we be breaking into my private stash for this?”

  “Thank you, father, but no, I can’t,” Samuel replied, even though a stiff drink sounded like exactly what he could use right now. He knew that Gorman kept a bottle of spirits in his desk, made by a particularly skilled distiller in the settlement who could supply one with the means to numb oneself, provided that the imbiber hand over the appropriate amount of wheat or barley from their rations. Gorman’s bottle served him on the bad days. “I have to get back to the shop to address the team after we’re done here.”

  “Suit yourself. At least pull up a chair, and rest yourself a bit. It feels like this is going to be a ‘sit down’ kind of conversation.”

  Gorman returned to his old wooden chair on the opposite side of the desk and Sam dragged over a sturdy one from the wall, wooden as well. Gorman much preferred the feel of wood over metal. Samuel had never actually asked him about it, but assumed it has something to do with his distaste of living in what was essentially a big metal can.

  “Alright,” Gorman prompted. His body seemed to tense, and there was an expression on his face that made it look like he was preparing for a blow. “What is it?”

  “Another disappearance,” Samuel began when they had both settled into their seats. “This time in the sub-levels. His name is...was...George Gomez. He was a member of my team.”

  Gorman’s face fell.

  “I remember him. Out with it,” he said.

  Samuel went on to describe the ordeal that he, Kelly, and Henry had been through, and the circumstances surrounding George’s passing. The elder Councilman listened intently, his dark blue eyes never leaving Samuel’s, barely blinking. He never interrupted to ask any questions, he only sat and waited silently until Samuel was finished with his eerie account, his face growing darker with each word.

  “Damn,” Gorman swore vehemently, thumping a closed fist on his desk after Samuel had run out of words. “With all the challenges we face, now this as well? I have so many asking for answers...for comfort. But what answer could I give them for this?” He narrowed his considerable eyebrows. “Was there anything left behind, this time? Any clue to what might be causing this?”

  Samuel drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “Maybe,” he said. “George left a message, on the computer. It’s like he was chronicling his last moments. He mentioned something he found, some information he happened upon in t
he servers.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “I don’t know. He deleted it before he was taken. His message seemed to suggest that it was the cause. He was scared that, if anyone else were to see what he saw, they would be taken as well.” He rubbed his temples. “It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?”

  “Very little does, these days.” Gorman rose and walked to the window, squinting against the sunlight. When he turned, the light scattered through his hair and for a moment he appeared downright angelic. Samuel almost chuckled. For a man who detested being compared to a messiah as much as Gorman did, he often ended up in place as one, regardless of his preference.

  “Can this information be retrieved?” Gorman asked him.

  Samuel raised his eyebrows. “I’m not so sure it should be. It’s dangerous.”

  “Granted. We’re all just so thirsty for any explanation for these bizarre phenomena. We have no knowledge on our side to fight it.” He came over and leaned against his desk, suddenly looking a lot older. His tone was grave. “We lost Diana, as well.”

  Samuel blinked. “Councilwoman Horgrove?”

  “The same. She came down with symptoms last week. Then yesterday...gone. I went to her quarters, when she hadn’t been seen, and found her soup boiling over on the stove and her robes on the floor.”

  “I’m...sorry.”

  “Why...did you do it? You don’t need to apologize for things that aren’t your fault.” Gorman relaxed and self-consciously shook his head, when he saw the look on Samuel’s face. “Now I’m sorry. I can’t switch it off. You’ll understand if you ever become a parent.”

  Samuel smirked, and then grew serious again. “Symptoms?” he prompted.

  “The usual. Coughing. Body aches.” Gorman frowned. “She was saying some strange things, though, much in line with your colleague’s last message. She was more philosophically preoccupied than usual, more...unsure...of her place. It was like she was experiencing an existential crisis...questioning herself. I tried to comfort her, but she shooed me away, tried to placate my concerns—rather unconvincingly, I might add. I could see there was truly something bothering her.”

  “I’m not so sure you should be in contact with any of the sick. We need you.” Samuel knew how his next statement would be taken, but he spoke it aloud anyway. “Perhaps it’s time...to separate them?”

  “What? Quarantine? Cut them off from the others, from friends and loved ones? No. We’ve worked too hard to come together. I’ll not soon start dividing us again.”

  Samuel nodded, unsurprised. “I understand. Still, if this thing is somehow based on the transference of information, no matter how ridiculous that sounds, it might be highly communicable.”

  Gorman paused...nodded.

  “It is markedly disturbing, isn’t it?” he asked. “What infects others faster than ideas?” He let out a tired sigh. “Keep a close eye on your people, Sam. Nobody goes off alone anymore. We can’t afford any more losses.”

  Both of them turned their heads to the window, then, hearing a clamor rising outside. There was a cheer. One hundred voices strong? Two? The din died down and then there was only one, the magnetic cadence of it doing what magnets do. Neither Samuel nor Gorman needed to look outside to know who was speaking.

  “Speaking of infection...” Gorman mused, darkly. “At it again, so soon? That’s the second time, today.”

  “Yeah. I saw him earlier. Father...he’s getting more aggressive.”

  Gorman nodded. “Every day he preaches his fanatic drivel, he rallies more to his cause. Their numbers have swelled to dangerous levels, and I can no longer dismiss his church,” Gorman spat the word from his mouth like an undesirable taste, “as impotent. Those zealots are growing in power and influence. We need to be vigilant, so we know it if they decide to try to hamstring us. A coup, placing Tristan Englewood in charge, would be the end of the Spire.”

  Now it was Samuel’s turn to narrow his eyes. He had seen many times how seductive Tristan’s words could be when he addressed a group, and how his ideology worked against everything that Gorman had achieved. Then a thought occurred to him. An unpleasant, prickly one.

  “What about...exile?”

  Gorman raised his brow in surprise, holding Samuel with his eyes. “Be careful using that word, Sam. I did that once, many years ago, and to this day I’m still not certain it was the right choice. I do not approve of Tristan’s message of this ‘Reclamation’, and I certainly don’t care for the man himself, but the threat he poses to the people doesn’t warrant being cast out. Not...yet.”

  At the mention of the Reclamation, Samuel’s thoughts drifted back to his dream.

  Twisted metal and shattered glass. Fire behind him and those eyes before him...eyes full of hate....

  “Sam?”

  He flinched, his thoughts snapping back to reality.

  “I’m sorry. I must be more tired than I thought.”

  Gorman leaned forward and looked him over with an appraising eye. “Tired, yes, but there is something else troubling you. You’re thinking of it, I know. Your other home. Your other family. When you were young, you’d yell out for them, in your sleep. Are your nights still so tortured?”

  Samuel dropped his eyes, trying to evade the question. “It’s fine, father,” he said. “I’m dealing with it. I’ll be okay.”

  “Sam.”

  Samuel looked up, meeting Gorman’s eyes as they bored into his. “You know that we can talk about it, don’t you? You don’t have to bear the burden alone. Your past may define you, but that doesn’t mean that it gets to dominate you. You’ve looked the devil straight in the face, and you’re still here, still breathing. Just keep breathing, son. That’s all you have to do. And remember, I’ll always be here when you need me.”

  “Yes, sir...thanks.”

  Gorman smiled, but the concern didn’t leave his face. He returned to his chair, lowering himself into it and leaning back. His expression hardened; he appeared to be struggling with an inner conflict. Samuel just sat and waited. He knew Gorman well enough to know when to shut up and let him think. His father finally turned back to him with a heaviness in his eyes.

  “Being that we’re on the subject of your childhood devil, I feel I should share something else with you, but I don’t want you to jump to any conclusions. I’m only telling you this because of your history.” Gorman ran a hand through his argent hair and sighed deeply.

  “We’ve been in contact with another settlement.”

  Samuel’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

  Gorman nodded. “They called themselves ‘New Haven’. I know you know that we occasionally dally with the radio, even though there never seemed to be any point...nobody ever seemed to be listening. Still, the mere possibility of learning that we weren’t the only patch of humanity left out here made flipping a switch on a radio every week or so worth it. A few months back we turned it on again but this time, instead of static, we heard a voice.”

  Samuel was frozen to the spot.

  “The breathless woman on the other end of the line was almost in complete disbelief that there was anybody else alive with a working radio,” Gorman continued. “The poor thing; she kept checking her instruments to make sure that we were live, warm-blooded humans. See, they’d only just figured out how to repair communications, over there. They fixed the radio, and then just left it on, sending out a broadcast every so often, like we would, on the off-chance that anyone would hear it and start talking back. Lo and behold, we did.

  “You can imagine how amazing those first conversations were. We shared information, from history to population to life-support capabilities and technology. From their description, New Haven was a city-sized wind farm, with a huge turbine on the top that caught the breeze and supplied them with power. From what they said, it sounded like their population figured at approximately a fourth of the Spire’s, so they had less people to support with more than enough food, water, and housing for everybody there. Their ha
bitation modules were subterranean, and like the Spire they had their own life-support capabilities.”

  Samuel finally found his voice. “Why...why didn’t you tell me this before?” he stammered.

  “I actually was planning to. We needed your help. See, the only vital piece of information that we were missing was their relative location. We were going to ask you and your team to see what you could come up with, using the radio, or whatever other tech magic you could dig up in the sub-levels. I knew about your endeavors with the servers, downstairs; I thought there might be something there to leverage.”

  He continued.

  “The Council thought we could find plenty of volunteers to transfer over to New Haven, if only we could find one another. With physical access and functional vehicles, New Haven would be able to provide the Spire with plenty of food and clean water, and we could provide them with more manpower to support their settlement. With a decreased population, the Spire would experience a decreased strain on our resources. The plan was...ideal.”

  “What happened?” Samuel asked, breathless. “You’re speaking in the past tense.”

  “We set a schedule to restore radio communication with them every three days, whether we had anything important to say to one another or not. Every three days, like clockwork, if only just to hear another person’s voice over the air. Then, two weeks ago, we ceased receiving anything from them. The only thing we have to go on is the very last transmission we copied. They said something that probably wouldn’t make any sense to anybody but you.” At this, Gorman once again locked his eyes on his adopted son before he continued.

  “They said that, right in the middle of the damned day, the sky turned black.”

  A ball of fear began to spin in Samuel’s stomach.

  Twisted metal.... Shattered glass....

  Gorman continued. “We keep trying to reestablish contact, of course, but the only thing we get is static. I myself am torn between trying to remain hopeful, and fearing the worst.”