by Jake Marley
~~~
They followed Tom through dark hallways, deeper into the museum. He carried a small torch that smelled of burning hair and cooking oil. Thursday walked behind the others, stumbling a little. Psychologically he’d kept most of the pain in his body at bay, but it was catching up. Not just from the accident, either.
The sickness was getting to him, worse than ever. He wanted to slide along the wall of the dark hallway and just sleep. Surrender. He’d worked so hard to get here, but he’d had enough. It was over.
Peligra came back for him and said, “You can’t stop now. I heard you whispering to yourself. Miles to go before you sleep, remember?”
She dragged him up and he limped after her. Tom was there, holding the door, and his huge face split into a grin. “You’re gonna like this, Mr. Mapmaker. I promise you that.”
The room reminded Thursday of a library, but there were no books on the shelves. There were more skulls, more bones, and there were taxidermy animals with glass eyes. Skunks, foxes, ferrets, owls. The fogged glass window let in enough light to remind them that though the museum was dark inside, it was only late afternoon. Tom snuffed his torch in a box of ash, and aimed them at a pair of green leather armchairs that were remarkably intact.
“Take a seat, please. I’ve got something for you both.” The big man crawled underneath a table and around a bookshelf, and soon came back cradling a tall, leather-bound book. He put it on a small end table between Peligra and Thursday, then took a step back to gauge their reactions.
The book had two words written on the cover in flecked, gold-embossed ink. WORLD ATLAS.
“Science,” Tom said, “is built on the shoulders of those who came before us. No need to reinvent the wheel, and no need to chart the shape of the world if it’s already been done for you.”
With shaking hands, Thursday opened the book. Thick pages that turned easily. Pictures on every page. Grays and browns and greens. Tiny words scattered over exquisitely-rendered mountain ranges, deserts, oceans. He turned more pages, saw the names of places he’d only ever read about. Saw their geography, their distance, their mystery unlocked.
His fingertips lingered on the words THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
There it was. Laid out, with black lines separating the states of what was once a cohesive country. A major force in the world. A union, banded together with purpose, with language, with culture.
“This is our country,” Thursday said, and there was a quaver in his voice that matched the tremble in his hands.
“Where? Where are we?” Peligra spoke in hushed, reverent tones. She knew the power of these drawings, and could feel their importance.
“This is the Pacific,” Thursday said. “And this is California.”
He didn’t want to look further, but couldn’t help himself. The pain in his body was too great. Too consuming. His finger traveled north and he found Seattle on the map and nearly cried out.
Too far. So very, very far.
Unbidden, his finger tapped the word, and Peligra sounded it out. “Say-suh-suttle?” She gasped. “Seattle?”
Thursday nodded.
She tapped the book. “Show me,” she said. “Show me how far we’ve come. From Queen Mary. From the ocean.”
If he’d had any energy, Thursday would’ve walked away. Run, if he could’ve. He hesitated too long.
Tom Bucket leaned down. “Queen Mary lives in Long Beach. Right here.” The big man touched the coast. “And we’re here.”
The space between cities could’ve been covered by a single dot from a pencil.
~~~
They returned to the Hall of Mammals to sleep. Tom talked steadily as they settled down. Thursday barely heard the man. His mind was lost in that distance, the span of his hand from Los Angeles to Seattle. He was dying. He was running out of time.
Tom Bucket reset Thursday’s splint and gave him more aspirin. As he added more wood to the campfire in the hall he spoke of a distant time, when knowledge and transportation were taken for granted. How people were once able to travel between cities in a matter of hours instead of weeks or months. Thursday had heard it all before, but it never once made things better. His thoughts were black, broken, filled with pain and fear and sorrow. It was too great a distance.
Peligra wouldn’t release the book, not for anything. She squinted at the pages, her lips moving, sounding out what she found there. In the firelight her eyes were wide and curious, and Tom eventually tired of Thursday’s silence and went to look over her shoulder.
“The maps are yours, if you want them. No one has even looked in them in decades.”
Peligra’s eyes went wide, “It’s too great a gift. I can’t take them from you.”
Tom chuckled, “I think they’re exactly the right kind of gift for a future queen.”
~~~
They left Exposition Park with the rising sun. Thursday leaned on Tom’s spear, using it as a walking stick so he wouldn’t stumble. He hated to do it, to have one hand pulling him along while the other was incapacitated in the splint, but time had finally caught up to him. Time, and the thing killing him slowly from the inside.
That morning he couldn’t feel his toes.
The Bone Rails were made up of two Metro train cars covered in the rib bones of some titanic ancient creature Tom called a Brachiosaurus. “It’s not to scale, of course, and they’re not the real bones, but they look good, don’t they?”
“How does it go?”
Tom scratched the back of his neck. “Oh, it’s an electric motor, built specifically to get this rig moving. Dangerous as any generator in this nightmare world we’re living in. You only need enough juice to get her started, though. I keep the rails greased, and she’ll slide pretty well once you get her up to speed.”
“And risk the swarm?” Peligra asked.
“Yep. I’m afraid it’s the only way.”
“We could walk,” she said.
“You’ll still do plenty of walking before you get to the Stars. Climbing, too. Your friend might not make it.”
“I’m fine,” Thursday said.
“Machismo,” Tom said. “I respect it, brother, but it will get you killed.”
“He’ll survive,” Peligra said. “And you’re right, we’ll have to walk plenty after this, so we take the train. Even if it calls the swarm.”
“If it helps, there are no working engines within miles of here, and I’ve made this trip a few times before. Never had any problems. It’s dark under Union Station, cave dark, which can be a little harrowing, but the rails are clear all the way though. You can trust that I’ll get you closer to your goal.”
“Recent events have taught me not to take much on faith any longer,” Peligra said, “but I appreciate your help.” She had the atlas tucked away in a pack Tom had given her, with more food and water for the upcoming day. She had the satchel back on her hip. Her hand never seemed to leave her hammer.
Across the way there was a city of red brick. When Tom saw them looking, he said, “That used to be a university. USC. Lots of stragglers in there, lots of bloodshed and rival gangs. I was told that’s where I was rescued from, so you’ll forgive me when I speak in generalities. I haven’t passed over those walls, though they’re so close. I trade with others in further neighborhoods. Seems safer that way.”
There was no fanfare when the train started rolling down the Bone Rails. The inside of the car was dusty and the plastic seats had cracked, but Thursday fell into one like it was the green leather armchair from the disused library. His arm throbbed, and every part of his body felt as though it were made of ground glass, shifting and scraping with every twitch.
Tom looked back once, longingly, at his museum, and Peligra stood at the window watching the world roll by. Her confidence on the caravan had altered slightly, shifting from the leader of a family to something more innocent. Thursday recognized a look on her face he had often worn himself.
She was caught up in the wonder of travel.
&n
bsp; She had the face of a tourist.
He closed his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer. He’d slept badly in the night and still needed to recover, and for that he needed rest. Instead of fighting it, he succumbed and allowed himself to fall asleep.
~~~
Thursday woke up blind.
They were no longer moving. All was as silent as a held breath. He touched his own nose, hoping to see something in the dark. Nothing. No movement. Not even a glint of fingernail.
He cleared his throat, ready to call out, when he felt a hand over his mouth. In his ear, barely audible, Peligra said, “Live through this.”
His heart raced. He heard footsteps at the far end of the train car. Heavy, unfamiliar breathing. Just outside his window there were curses in another language from strange men. They were soft, as if the men were attempting to be stealthy, but Thursday heard them just the same.
Then whispers. Too close. Again, just outside his window. “The Bone Rails need pilots, don’t they? Trains just don’t move themselves.”
“Ghosts,” another man said. “Did you hear an engine? I didn’t hear an engine.”
“Who’s in there, eh? We have lights. Fire. Don’t make us!”
Something shifted. Closer. The creak of a leather strap. The slide of a foot along the center of the train. It rocked slightly from someone’s weight. Thursday tensed, riding the adrenaline that suddenly flooded his system. Needing it. Feeding off it.
Then light. Just a moment of a flashlight beam, aimed through the windows from outside. Like lightning, it was enough to illuminate the entire train car. Thursday’s brain registered everything.
Beside him, Peligra had her hammer in her hand. She was back to back with Tom Bucket, and he’d taken back his spear. There were three other men in the train car, from what Thursday could see. They were hunched and feral, holding lengths of wood. Teeth bared, they attacked just after the flash, and Tom roared.
Thursday heard the struggle, but saw nothing. He started to his feet and felt Peligra push him back down. She said, “Stay where I know you’ll be,” and then there was a clang as her hammer smashed into something metal.
“Got you,” someone whispered. “Got you now, got you now, big man.”
Another man screamed from inside the train car. “More light, more light!”
The flashlights outside came on. Blue-white light. Barely enough to see by, but it showed Tom racing at the two men on his side of the train. Something jagged stuck from his chest, but didn’t slow him. He roared again and drove his spear into the man before him.
Peligra brought her hammer down in a vicious arc. It broke a scavenger’s wrist and the man let out a teakettle cry before Peligra brought her hammer back around and smashed it into his teeth.
A fourth man, rat-faced, came up into the car, but he turned and ran from Peligra’s hammer. She grabbed Thursday and said, “This is a death trap. We have to move.”
Outside, the man with the flashlight started screaming, “Don’t let them go or the Saint will kill us all!”
Thursday got to his feet. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit him, and he swayed but still managed to climb over the writhing man on the ground long enough to follow Peligra off the train.
Behind them, they heard Tom Bucket roar once more, but then his voice died in a series of wet, strangled cries.
Just outside the train car the rat-faced man who’d run from Peligra grabbed her around the waist and tackled her to the ground. Thursday could barely move but he kicked out and caught Rat-Face behind the ear, rolling him off of her. Peligra got to her feet quickly and her hammer came down hard three times on the man’s skull. No hesitation, no mercy.
Chung!
Thursday heard a familiar sound and felt the crossbow bolt whip past his face, barely missing him. It clattered into the dark. Peligra grabbed his arm again and started dragging him along the rails. The flashlight was all over the place, searching for them, sending wild shadows tilting and swaying in the tunnel. He wanted to go back for the crossbow, but knew that if the man behind the trigger had any sense at all he wouldn’t waste another bolt until he had them dead in his sights. Running was the only option.
“I can’t,” Thursday said, limping.
“You don’t have a choice,” Peligra said.
Up ahead, in the tunnel, they saw more flashlights coming toward them. More shouts. More men.
Peligra rolled onto a raised platform and pulled Thursday up behind her. He banged his broken arm and had to clench his teeth to keep from screaming, but a small, involuntary moan escaped anyway.
They found metal stairs—a defunct escalator—that rose into more pure blackness. They were trapped underground with hostiles behind them, and no other options than up.
~~~
Peligra panted as she climbed the steps, and Thursday followed her by sound, by flailing touch, by the desire to live despite the pain.
None of the black thoughts were with him in that moment. Surrender wasn’t an option, and if Death really was coming for him, it would have to work a whole lot harder for him to go willingly.
“There’s a way out,” she said. “We go up into the lobby and out the front doors. Tom said thousands of people would travel through here every day, but that most people in Los Angeles didn’t even know there was a Bone Rail or Metro or whatever.”
Tom had also said the Saint kept away from the Bone Rails, too, but Thursday didn’t have the breath to mention it.
Behind them, more shouts. Rough voices. Desperate. Angry. Scared.
Peligra said, “We went underground just after the Staples Center. We will come up and there will be daylight. We’ll escape.”
Unless they’re waiting for us in the lobby, too, Thursday thought.
They both stumbled at the top step. Peligra kept Thursday from falling on his face, then whipped him around and pushed him forward. He felt her bend past him, touching the ground with her hands, and she said, “This goes up, too.”
Thursday led the way. Up and up and up.
Peligra spoke in a thin, panicked voice. Her words sounded like prayer. “The Muertas bring death to the ignorance of the world. We all get our time, and the days of the scavengers are over. First to the Bone Rails, then to the Stars, we will bring our gift, our promise, and reshape the world.”
Dim hope up ahead, just as they heard the men climbing behind them up this second set of dark stairs. Thursday could almost see the steps in the gray gloom. He felt Peligra’s hand on his back, felt her push him a little faster.
“Don’t stop,” she said. “Not for anything.”
His legs burned. His lungs ached. His body screamed in protest, in pain. His knees, still sore and raw from the crash, felt as though they were bleeding again, soaking the legs of his pants in fresh blood.
Then she screamed behind him. “No!”
He could just make out a struggle. A little man with a wide, broken face snarled and grabbed at Peligra’s satchel with hooked fingers. His eyes looked like black oil spots, all pupil, and there was a slick of drool on his stubbled chin.
Peligra tugged at her satchel and the little man almost toppled her, pushing as she pulled, then pulling back hard. Peligra hit him once with her hammer, a glancing blow on the side of his head, but his hands let go of the satchel and grabbed at the hammer instead. The little man yanked the hammer from Peligra but lost his own balance and fell backwards down the stairs. He turned end over end into that black pit, silent until he crashed into the others that were climbing up behind them.
Peligra said nothing, but pointed up past Thursday and forced him to climb a little faster.
~~~
They came up and ran through a beautiful marbled lobby with high ceilings and Art Deco architecture. Their footfalls echoed. The doors, wide and inviting, called them to the outside world.
Spots in his vision. Pain everywhere. Impossible. Crippling. Devastating. Disastrous.
Because I could not stop for Death.
“Oh, hell,” he said. Panting. His lungs on fire, his body broken, stumbling, crashing, chased.
“Outside,” Death commanded him. She was cut and bleeding, her sweat-slick hair plastered to her cheek.
They pushed through the doors and ran into the sunlight. Down more steps, and this time Thursday fell and he fell hard, tumbling down the last few stairs, rolling on his broken arm and barking at the pain. Crying out like a child. Unable to control himself.
Peligra had him up on his feet. Both stumbled down the road, searching for safety. For sanctuary. Panicked, surging forward, all but defeated, he said, “This is it.”
“No,” she said. “No.”
He didn’t have the strength to argue with her. Squinting in the sunlight he searched the street. Desperate. Feeling the mob behind him. The scavengers. What had they said, back at the train car?
Don’t let them go or the Saint will kill us all.
The Saint de España. Queen Mary. A story to follow. A path that led to an imperial highway. All of it would be added to his guidebook.
If he lived.
Then ahead, a familiar sign. Skulls, guarding the road. Not the fanged Tyrannosaurus skulls of the Bone Rails, but these were oversized, almost comically so—boulders of white plaster, shaped like the skulls of giant humans, painted in bright and colorful flowers and elegant, vine-like filigree.
They were the skulls of the Muertas.
“There,” he said, pointing, and beside him, shockingly, Peligra burst into tears.
She grabbed his free hand and together they ran.
~~~
A blue street sign on a wrought-iron pole.
OLVERA STREET. EST. 1930.
There were painted skulls everywhere. On every colorful blue wall. In every doorway. On the yellow steps that led to small houses covered in red terra cotta rooftops. The street was brick and narrow. An empty fountain. More skulls painted in the road.
This was a place of the Muertas. A road of Death.
Peligra dragged Thursday under a staircase, hiding in the shadows. She kissed her fingers and touched it to the nearest painted skull on the wall. Though empty of souls, the place had power. It was concentrated. Intense. Thursday could feel it around him. Something on the path. Something in the walls.
