Immobility

by Brian Evenson

  They moved forward for a time in silence, Qatik still clinging to his brother. Horkai tried again.

  “What do you think of Rasmus?”

  For a moment Qatik didn’t speak. “What do you mean?” he finally said. “He is Rasmus.”

  “What do you mean by ‘He is Rasmus’?” asked Horkai, confused.

  “Exactly that,” said Qatik. “Rasmus is Rasmus and is no other.”

  “But that doesn’t explain what you think of him,” said Horkai. “Do you like him?”

  “He is Rasmus,” said Qatik. “He has his purpose. How can I judge how well he serves it? His purpose is different from our purpose and I do not understand it nearly as well as I do my own. That is proper. Surely you can see that?”

  “Yes, I suppose,” said Horkai. “But what does that have to do with whether you like him or not?”

  “Exactly. How can I like or dislike someone whose purpose I imperfectly understand? You, however, I can speak about with more authority. You are the burden. As far as I understand that portion of your purpose, you fulfill it admirably. You are sturdy but not overly heavy. You do not struggle when you are carried, you do not scream except when injured, and you do not fall off if you are not tied on. Burden, I like the way you fulfill your purpose.”

  “Call me Horkai,” he said. “And liking the way I fulfill my purpose is not the same as liking me.”

  “But what are we if we are not our purpose?” asked Qatik. “Burden Horkai, I like the way you fulfill your purpose.”

  “Just Horkai,” said Horkai.

  They might have talked more, but Qanik grunted and shrugged Qatik’s arm off his shoulder. Qatik fell silent, gradually drifted away. They walked, faster now, Horkai gently rocking up and down as they went.

  * * *

  THE ROAD TOOK THEM SLOWLY UP, edging closer to the mountains—unless it was the mountains that came closer of their own accord.

  He thought he saw movement in one of the housing complexes they passed, a series of ruined duplexes that had once been identical and now were collapsed in somewhat disparate ways. Another flat, empty space, perhaps an old sports field. He could see it in his mind, green as it had been, rather than the slightly concave rectangle of dirt it was now. Things were coming back to him, though slowly, and not the important things. Or was it simply his imagination making an educated guess about what had been there?

  A huge gouge in the ground 30 feet wide and 150 long, either a long-interrupted construction site or the result of some instrument of devastation. Farther on, in the dust, to one side of an intersection, was a metal signpost, bent over and crushed, the sign itself buried in the dust. Qatik stopped and dragged it up, straightening it until they could see at the end of it the octagonal shape of a stop sign, the word STOP faded but still faintly visible on it.

  “What does it say?” asked Qatik.

  “Have you never seen a stop sign?” asked Horkai.

  Qatik shook his head.

  “Can’t you read?”

  Within his hood, Qatik shook his head again. “Neither of us read. But I can recognize letters.”

  Beneath him, he felt Qanik nod. “It’s not important for everyone to read,” said Qanik. “Some read and some do other things. We all have our purpose.”

  “Who told you that?” asked Horkai. “Someone who can read, I bet.”

  Not detecting the irony in his tone, Qanik nodded. “Our leader,” he said. “Rasmus.”

  “Should we stop?” asked Qatik. “As the sign instructs?”

  “It isn’t meant for us,” Horkai said. “And besides, we’ve already stopped. Now we can go on.”

  Qatik let the sign fall. They walked on, Qanik stopping every once in a while to reposition Horkai on his shoulders. A collapsed strip mall, beside it a building mostly intact. Probably a bank, Horkai thought, and then realized that yes that was what it was. He wasn’t speculating, he was remembering, this time he was almost certain of it. There were areas that were oddly undamaged—houses with their windows broken out and bricks stripped of paint but otherwise more or less habitable. And then there were other areas that had been all but leveled by mortars or shock waves or dust storms or other weather. Sometimes both areas stood side by side, with a sharp transition dividing one from the other, the whole arrangement artificial and arbitrary enough to make him wonder if it was real.

  A Mormon ward house, little left of it beyond a weathered spire and a flattened roof. The houses became sparser, thinning out, and then they thickened momentarily again before thinning out further still.

  They came to a large intersection, the road crossing it almost as big as the one they were traveling, and the mules stopped.

  “Which way?” asked Qatik.

  Horkai shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Which way?” asked Qatik again, as if he hadn’t heard. Not knowing what else to do, Horkai pushed on the back of Qanik’s head until he moved out into the intersection. From there, he looked to either side. To the east, the road ran quickly south, trailing up a high ridge. To the west, it moved straight ahead, climbing very slowly. In front of them, it continued roughly north, coming still closer to the mountains.

  The map Rasmus had given them followed a path between the mountains and the lake. For now, thought Horkai, they would stay close to the mountains and wait for the lake to appear. He pushed on the back of Qanik’s head again, and they started forward and through the intersection. Qatik hesitated a moment and then followed as well.

  * * *

  THEY WALKED IN SILENCE for another mile or nearly so, the mountain building up to one side. The wind and dust were making him cough. An old, severely damaged electric substation, transformers crumpled or fallen over in the dust. And then the road split again, one strand of it following a slow curve westward and uphill, toward the lake, the other threading down and into the mouth of a dust-clogged canyon, immediately curving out of sight.

  “Which way?” asked Qatik again.

  “Maybe the canyon,” said Qanik.

  “Not the canyon,” said Horkai, on impulse.

  “Why not?” said Qanik from below him. “The canyon. It goes north, we’re going north. We should take the canyon.”

  “I don’t think it goes where we’re going,” said Horkai.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” said Horkai. “It’s just what I feel.”

  Qatik came around in front of the other mule until their faceplates were nearly touching. They stared at each other for a long time, perhaps moving their lips as well, perhaps even reading each others’ lips—it was impossible for Horkai to say, since from above he couldn’t see their faces. And then, finally, Qatik backed up, looked at him.

  “All right,” he said. “We will do as you say.”

  * * *

  THEY MOVED ON, the two mules relentless, never stopping to rest. They went up a hill and then hit level ground, crossing again through the remains of neighborhoods, another town, perhaps, or maybe the same one, everything seeming at once familiar and utterly foreign.

  They passed an anemic stream, its water bloodred. The mules kept as much distance from it as they could. The sun was high overhead now, perhaps just approaching its apex, perhaps just starting its downward arc. He was thirsty, his mouth dry from the dust in the air, his skin grainy with it and raw from the wind. They passed a ruined school, unless it was something else just as large, maybe a hospital. On the other side was another hospital, unless it was a school. The mules stopped and eyed the latter building for a moment, speaking to each other in muffled voices, their speakers half-covered with their gloves, then shook their heads, continued on.

  The road began to slope downward. He could see the lake again now, glowering in the distance two or three or more miles away, looking much larger than it had seemed initially at the other end of town, if they were still in the same town. The water was an odd color, a bloodred tinge to it, though not quite as red as the stream had been. A sort of dead marsh
lay beside the lake, sickly gray from this distance. Between them and the marsh, he could see a much larger road: the freeway.

  Horkai patted Qanik on the head. “There,” he said. “Do you see? That’s the freeway. That’s what we need.”

  The mule paused, then nodded. They picked their way toward it, and started north when they finally reached it.

  * * *

  FOR LONG STRETCHES, the freeway was intact and then would suddenly dissolve into a crater or buckle into peaks so that they had to either go around it or clamber up and down it. It took a long slow curve northeast, following the banks of the lake at a distance, and for an hour or two or maybe three, Horkai thought it was the wrong road. Once or twice he almost said something to the mules, but he didn’t know exactly what to say, nor did he know what other road they could take. The lake had been on the map, so maybe they were on the right road after all. How many freeways could there be?

  And then, at last, the road curved north a little and began to climb. He could see, in the distance, the point where it crested the low side of the mountain, miles away. It was okay, he told himself. It was the right road.

  9

  BARE LAND ON ONE SIDE, ruins on the other, then ruins on both. It had started to seem all the same to him. “Any chance of a drink?” Horkai asked. “And what about food?”

  “Not yet,” said Qatik. “Not here.”

  “My tongue feels like it’s made of wool,” he said.

  “Your tongue is not made of wool,” reasoned Qanik. “No tongues are made of wool.”

  “Soon,” said Qatik. “Soon.”

  What soon meant, it was hard to say. They trudged uphill. The sun had slipped lower in the sky. For the first time, Qanik stumbled, almost pitched Horkai off his shoulders. Qatik was immediately there, steadying him. Shall I take him? he was saying. Shall I have my turn? But Qanik, waving him off, kept going.

  And then Qatik took off on his own, running hundreds of feet ahead of them, finally vanishing off the side of the road.

  “Where’s he gone?” asked Horkai.

  “Do not worry,” said Qanik from below him. “He will come back.”

  “I’m not worried,” said Horkai. “I just want to know what he’s doing.”

  But Qanik kept walking and didn’t respond.

  They went a little farther in silence, Qanik grunting occasionally, his steps slightly less steady.

  “How many hours have passed?” Horkai finally asked.

  “What do you mean, hours?” asked Qanik.

  “You don’t know what hours are?”

  Qanik didn’t bother to respond.

  “How much time has passed since we started?” asked Horkai.

  “Most of the day,” said Qanik.

  “Can’t you be more specific than that?”

  “How?”

  He was traveling with a man who seemed not to know what hours were.

  He had no watch, no way to measure time, nor had he seen anything like a clock at the community. “When night falls, I can be more specific. Then it will be one day.”

  Something had appeared in the road, perhaps a half mile in front of them, perhaps more. It was moving. Horkai’s heart skipped a beat before he realized it must be Qatik.

  “Isn’t there anything alive out here?” he asked.

  “Roaches,” said Qanik without hesitation. “Sometimes there are roaches, but only sometimes.”

  “Anything else?”

  Qanik pondered for a long time, his footsteps growing a little less certain. “We are alive and we are out here,” he finally said.

  “Other than us,” said Horkai. “Other than the roaches.”

  “No,” said Qanik. “Nothing can live here.”

  “Then why can I live here? Why don’t I need a suit?”

  Horkai felt Qanik’s shoulders twitch, wondered if he had forgotten he was carrying Horkai and had tried to shrug.

  “You can survive,” Qanik said. “That is all I know.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you are not dead yet.”

  Qatik loped up, his black suit now covered with white dust.

  “I’ve found a place,” he said. “Just off the road, a facility of some kind. Industrial or farming related. A central building, a series of round cylinders as well, ten in all, on supports, with entrances near the base. Some are still standing.”

  “Anyone living in them?” asked Qanik.

  “Not that I could see,” said Qatik.

  Qanik nodded, gestured the other mule forward with one hand. They followed him up to where the freeway had once crossed over another road—the bridge collapsed now. They clambered down the slope to the roadway below.

  What Qatik had called cylinders Horkai recognized as silos. They weren’t far, only a few hundred feet from the freeway. The two or three largest had collapsed, caving in on one another, and were little more than bits and pieces of metal ribs now. But many of the others, smaller and perhaps shielded by the larger ones, were more or less intact.

  They went toward them, the two mules pointing and nudging each other. They came close to one, walked around it until Qanik pointed to a huge tear in the metal. They moved on to the next one.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Horkai, but neither of them answered.

  The roof of the next was gone and they passed it by. The next still was slightly larger and they walked completely around it, squeezing their way through the gap between it and the next one. Finally Qatik turned, eyebrows raised.

  “It will do,” Qanik stated.

  With Horkai’s help they found the manual hatch release and Qatik tugged on it, but nothing happened. He pulled harder and Horkai heard the metal groan, but it was not until Qanik lumbered forward and grabbed hold as well that the hatch finally sprang open and tens of thousands of husks of long-dead beetles poured out, a fine powdery dust along with it.

  When it had stopped, Qatik crunched to the top of the pile and, grabbing the lip of the chute, tried to pull his way in, but the opening was too small. He shucked the two backpacks and this time wriggled in. A moment later, his gloved hand was thrust back out, waited there, palm open.

  “Come on,” said Qanik, and reached up to lift Horkai off his shoulders. He hung there helpless in the air, his lifeless legs dangling, like a child’s doll, and then Qanik thrust him up to the chute opening and Qatik’s hand closed around his shirt, dragging him awkwardly in, setting him down roughly on a narrow metal ledge.

  “Find something to hold on to,” said Qatik, and thrust his hand out again.

  There was a ladder beside him and he grabbed it with one hand. His gun was digging into his side so he took it out, balanced it on the ledge beside him. It was extremely hot inside, the air almost unbreathable. It was also very difficult to see. The only light was that coming up through the hatch and from an opening high above, a flap in the top of the roof, where the grain must have in the past been poured in. The backpacks flopped in beside him and then, suddenly, the light dimmed and, grunting, the black-suited form that was Qanik forced itself through. Once he was all the way in, he turned around and reached back out, pulled the hatch door closed with his fingers.

  “Are you sure we’ll be able to open it again?” asked Horkai.

  “Should be,” said Qatik, and then started up the ladder, nearly crushing Horkai’s fingers. Down below, beside Horkai, Qanik braced his legs against the inner edge of the hatch chute and dug through one of the backpacks, at last removing a fusee, which he cracked and threw down to rest on the hatch itself. It lay there, burning with a pale red light that cast wavering shadows all through the bottom of the silo. The acrid smoke made Horkai cough. Meanwhile, Qatik had climbed all the way to the top. Leaning far out, he pulled the upper opening closed.

  Once he was down, the two mules untaped their hoods, careful to try to preserve the seal for later. They didn’t take them off, just slid them back on their heads so that their mouths were visible. Their chins, Horkai saw
, were slick with sweat.

  “Hungry?” asked Qanik. It was strange to watch someone talk when all you could see of their face was their mouth.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” said Horkai. “The silo is going to fill with smoke.”

  “We will not stay here long,” said Qatik. “We have enough air for what we need.”

  “We will eat and then we will go,” said Qanik. He twisted the end off a metal cylinder and handed it to Horkai, motioned for him to drink. He did—water, warm and with a somewhat metallic taste. Qatik was already handing him a tin box that, when he opened it, he found to be full of hardtack.

  “Pour some water into the box and wait a moment,” said Qatik. “Otherwise you will break your teeth.”

  He poured the water in and waited. His eyes were burning from the smoke, making it difficult to see. He felt like he was suffocating.

  “You’re certain I don’t need a suit?” asked Horkai. “You’re certain I’ll be all right?”

  Qanik nodded. “You always have been,” he said. “If not, we’d already know.”

  “How?”

  “Skin rash at first, mild in the beginning but getting worse and worse. Then you would start to vomit blood. Around here, it wouldn’t take long for your skin to break into sores and ulcerate. If we were exposed to as much as you’ve been exposed to today, our circulation would be damaged and our hearts would fail.”

  “Why hasn’t that happened to me?”

  Qanik shrugged. “You are okay,” he said. “You always have been. You are not in any trouble.”

  “We are the ones that are in trouble,” said Qatik.

  “That’s why you’re wearing the suits,” said Horkai.

  “They are not enough,” said Qatik.

  “Not enough?”

  “No need to talk about it,” said Qanik.

  “But I want to talk about it,” said Horkai.

  “You do not want to hear about it,” said Qatik.

  “Both of you be quiet and eat,” said Qanik.

  Horkai looked at the tin in front of him. The water had softened the hardtack, making it a little more flexible. He took a bite, found it tasteless, but managed to choke it down. He took a sip of water, another bite of the biscuit.