by Peter Liney
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head and going into one of my long, stony silences, refusing to respond to anything, occasionally giving him “the look,” so that he would get the message and leave.
I just didn’t want him there prattling on when I had so much on my mind. I was worried about digging up that cable. Was it really going to be that easy? How much was it going to weigh, bearing in mind I had to get it back to the Village before sunrise? Even then I had to contact the guy from the garbage boat. What was he going to say? How would he get it down to the pier?
In the end, I guess I decided to do what I always do (the way, Jimmy says, I play chess), which is to just go ahead, do it, and worry about anything else, any repercussions, when, and if, they happen.
I don’t know how many times I pulled back the plastic on my doorway to peer out, waiting for night to arrive. So many that it began to feel like the day was simply refusing to move on, that it wasn’t going to allow me this act of foolishness. However, eventually darkness did begin to seep across the sky, making it deeper and more bruised, till at length it filled every corner. I waited for another half hour, till I was absolutely sure everyone was safely in their lean-tos, then tentatively slipped outside.
The cold, stench-filled night air hit me like the atmosphere of an alien planet. For several minutes I just stood there looking up and down the row, trying to accustom myself to the sensation of being outside at night. All around me hundreds of candles glowed inside different-colored plastics, shadows of figures moved on multihued screens. A couple of rats scurried across my foot as if to emphasize that this was their domain, that I had no right being out at such a time. I took a deep breath, tried to summon up the glory days of an old big guy, and set off in the direction of the Old City.
There was no moon as such, just the ghost of one leaping in and out of clouds, tossing shadows out of garbage piles, giving stuff an eerie glow of momentary life. Everything looked so different. Cold and still, fading from white to black, as if the Island was the body of an old iceberg drifting on the sea.
The noise of my feet crunching across crap sounded like it was echoing right across to the Mainland. As I got nearer to the Camp, I glanced down toward it, worried they might spot me. As always they had a huge fire going—it’s like their beacon, a warning to everyone. For a moment it went through my head to forget the whole thing, to scuttle back to my lean-to. I mean, if they’d had any idea I was out there, what I was up to, satellite policing or not, they’d come for me. Of that you could be sure.
At that precise instant, almost as if my fears had induced it, one of them started drumming. They do sometimes, even in the daytime. It don’t necessarily mean anything, but I gotta tell you, it stopped me dead. I dropped to the ground, the thump of my heart overwhelming the drum. Near the fire I could see some movement, maybe even a little excitement. Oh shit, I thought, don’t tell me they know I’m here.
I turned and looked back toward the Village. I’d gone too far. No way could I get back before they got up that hill and cut me off. If they did know where I was, I didn’t stand a chance.
And now, I guess, the time has finally come. No matter how reluctant I am, I can’t put it off any longer. I have to tell you who it is down in that Camp. About the devils who terrorize, torture, and butcher us. Believe me, no knowledge has ever weighed heavier on my mind, nor caused me greater pain. If I could spare you this, I would.
When I was little, by and large, the State still required children to be educated. But as the years went by, bearing in mind the cost of education—and the fact that the shift of economic power to Asia had resulted in so little demand for labor—some started to ask why the country should bother. Slowly, what had been a right became a privilege. Schools were “streamlined,” then eventually closed down altogether, and a lot of propaganda about “new opportunities” and “a golden age of leisure and independence” was put about. Within five years juvenile crime hit the roof. It was so rife that no one remained untouched. Action was needed and the government came up with this idea of simply paying the kids to behave. I mean, it wasn’t a whole lot of money, but with all the other handouts being slowly phased out, most of the kids jumped at it.
’Course, there were protests. The Church said it was immoral, paying children to be good, but the politicians just argued that it was practical—and what was God if he wasn’t the “big stick” anyway, if he wasn’t a means of blackmailing people into behaving? The government were just doing what they could to keep things sweet and the kids knew that, but as long as the money kept on coming, what did they care?
That was the trouble. It didn’t keep on coming. With the national debt getting ever larger and our creditors squeezing ever tighter, more and more cuts had to be made, and like everything else it was withdrawn. I mean, I think they must’ve had an idea of what would happen cuz it was one of the last things they took away. Long after pensions, unemployment, care for the sick, and everything else. But in the end they did it: they stopped paying the Good Behavior Allowance.
Seems to me the kids started rioting then and never really stopped. And I guess, if you think about it, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. No one had ever bothered to teach them right from wrong, just paid them some money. That was the balance, then somebody tipped it.
It was one helluva problem; whole generations with no moral compass. A kid would do anything for money: prostitution, trafficking, even murder. Life had never been so cheap. Want somebody wasted? Give some kid a few notes and send him, or her, off to do it. And if they didn’t succeed, well, there were plenty of others ready to try. The authorities didn’t know which way to turn. Rioting and looting was everywhere; suburb after suburb, city after city getting burned down. So many kids were breaking the law there was no way they could incarcerate them all. Of course, just as the authorities must’ve known it was going to, salvation arrived in the form of the punishment satellites.
Suddenly the government was back in control. Those kids who had parents prepared to pay for their imprisonment were locked up; those who didn’t, were, in effect, disowned and sent out here as part of the Island Rehabilitation Program. They became prisoners, just like us, never to leave this place.
With all pretense of a managed environment abandoned long ago, they were left to create their own society. And a pretty sick one it is, too. Over the years the older kids—the first across; hardened criminals, by now in their twenties, or even thirties—have developed into “Wastelords”; bossing this place, mining the garbage, trading with the Mainland. While the younger and weaker ones, fresh over on the boat or even born out here, work for them. Up and down the landfills all day, thigh-deep in the latest garbage delivery, sorting through it twelve or thirteen hours at a stretch. I tell you, it’s one helluva pitiful existence.
So guess how thrilled they were to find themselves sharing the Island with us? Old people, the very ones they’d always been taught to blame for their predicament. And it wasn’t through idle talk, neither, but a government-managed, full-on, save-your-ass propaganda campaign to convince everyone that we were the ones who’d ruined everything, who were responsible for delivering so many citizens of this once great country into poverty and humiliation. And you know something? I actually believe that in doing what they do some of them think they’re performing their patriotic duty, that they’re exacting a little of society’s revenge.
Anyway, now you know. Now you can guess who preys on us on dark foggy nights—those who provoke such fear in us all. Kids, some of them no more than ten or eleven, maybe even younger. The Wastelords fill their bodies with drugs, their heads with nonsense, and tell them to get up to the Village and have a good time. Little tots you wouldn’t think big enough to talk back to their mothers struggling under the weight of heavy machetes, hacking old people to death without mercy or conscience. And we can’t defend ourselves cuz, as official garbage sorters, they’re the only ones on the Island allowed to carry machetes. Anyone else packing anything that looks like
a weapon gets zapped.
And you want to know something? Something you might find impossible to believe? I’m not even sure I blame them. I mean, they’re children, for chrissake. Little kids. Do you blame them, or those who paved the way for them? Surely there’s some collective social responsibility? And if there is, then I guess I have to take my share. And incidentally, so do you.
For a long while I crouched there in the passing windows of moonlight, cursing myself for being so reckless, convinced a gang was about to come rushing up the hill. When it didn’t happen, when the single drummer, as if frustrated no one joined in, ground listlessly to a halt, I got to my feet and moved cautiously on.
The Old City can be a challenge in the day, but at night, I’ll tell you, it’s another world. Twisted skeletons of buildings writhe against the darkened sky, shadows so black you’d swear if you fell into them you’d never come out again. And everything seems to move slowly, stealthily, only stopping when you finally pin it down with a long hard stare.
At one point I heard this kind of faint swishing overhead and looked up to see two huge eyes and a white face coming for me. Before I could react there was a piercing shriek, it veered away, and I realized I’d been face-to-face with an owl. I tell you, those things just appear out of nowhere. I saw several of them after that. Just curious, I s’pose. Or maybe hoping I’d scare them up a meal. With all the rats it’s a real banquet out here; twenty-four hours a day, all you can eat.
As I walked down the slope to the jetty, the clouds broke and the moon lit a lonely trail out across the ocean and far into the distance; an escape route for fools. I unclipped my shovel and started to dig, soon locating the cable and starting to work my way along it. Not that it would be easy. The soil was soft enough, what with all the winter rain, but I was that apprehensive I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing. Over and over I paused, looking all around me, my ears cocked, expecting to see something or someone come slinking out of the shadows. In the end I had to just force myself to relax. I had eighty-odd yards of trench to dig, and I wasn’t going to get it done if I kept stopping all the time.
I got into this routine of working in bursts. Ten minutes or so of giving it everything, resting for a couple of minutes, then starting up again. But it wasn’t long before the balance began to change and I needed longer and longer breaks.
You have no idea how frustrating it is—not having the muscles I once had. How much I despise this flabby rusting old iron lung I’m now locked into. Once I could’ve dug out the whole trench in a matter of hours. I swear it. As it was, come midnight, I’d only managed thirty or so yards.
A sense of panic began to stir in me. A feeling that maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Perhaps the cable had never been dug up, not because no one had ever found it but because they all had the good sense to leave it where it was. I took in a whole chestful of air, fit to burst my pained lungs, and began to drive my shovel into the earth as hard as I could.
By two in the morning I was over halfway, by three I’d hit a softer patch and was making really good progress. In fact, I was so intent on what I was doing that I didn’t notice the moon dimming slowly.
I think it was the sound of the shovel that eventually alerted me. It didn’t echo anymore, just kind of hung there, dull and low. I stopped what I was doing, glanced up, and saw something that took my breath away.
There was a mist coming in off the ocean, thin and wispy, slowly wrapping itself around everything in its path. I cursed to myself, leapt out of the trench, and was about to head back to the Village when I hesitated.
It wasn’t that bad. I could still make out almost the entire jetty. Providing it didn’t get any thicker, the satellites would still function okay. I had sixty yards of cable exposed. Was I really going to leave it? In any case, I couldn’t help but think that if no one had appeared as yet, surely they weren’t going to?
I lowered myself back into the trench and resumed digging, glancing up every few seconds, keeping a real close eye on things, making sure I wasn’t presented with any more nasty surprises.
Where he came from I don’t know. One moment I looked up and there was nothing, the next he was there. Over toward the ocean, next to some rubble, a slim black figure silhouetted against the pale mist like a shadow on the wall.
He stood there for so long without moving I thought I must be imagining it, that it was just a shape that looked human. Then, as if he’d realized I was staring at him and that he should do something about it, he ducked back down.
I froze where I was, my shovel half raised, wondering what the hell to do. Before I could decide, a brick clattered down a pile of rubble to my right and I realized there were more of them. I stepped out of the trench and started to back away, then noticed several dark shapes creeping up behind me. I raised my shovel, turning circle a couple of times in a gesture of defiance and aggression, but they were all around me.
There must’ve been at least twenty of them. All ages from maybe ten to late teens; ragged, filthy, mostly boys, but a few girls as well. They came out of nowhere, like they’d been squeezed up out of the ground or something. I don’t know what had alerted them to my presence, but the way they were moving in made it pretty obvious what they had in mind. To make matters worse, the mist started noticeably thickening, as if it was their accomplice. I couldn’t even guarantee the satellites were still working.
It ain’t no use talking to them. No matter what you say, they just laugh at you. As if they no longer speak our language and they’re mocking you for not realizing.
“Cable,” I muttered, rather stupidly. “Thought I’d dig it out while no one’s around.”
No one answered. They just giggled and jeered, slowly closing in on me, nearer and nearer till one suddenly ran at me full pelt, only swerving away at the last moment.
They all cheered him. Then another did the same. Raising his fist and feinting to hit me, checking at the last instant. It took me a while to realize what they were up to. They were playing chicken. Getting closer and closer to me, more and more aggressive, waiting to see if the satellites would take a shot at them or not.
“Out at night,” commented the wiry one I’d first seen, shaking his head as if I’d broken a law and he was the enforcer. “Out at night.”
Another one came rushing at me, turning away at the very last instant, jumping up and screaming into my face.
They’re like animals, ragged and unkempt in their winter coats; all colors, all sizes, each one with the selfsame look in their eyes, kind of glazed, like moonlight has gotten in there and they can’t get it out again.
Someone came at me from behind, ran past and pretended to take a swing with a baseball bat. I raised my shovel, ready to hit him, but I was no more sure if those damn things were working than they were.
The thin one, I guessed he was their leader, walked right up to me and spat in my face. I could feel it’s moist warmth sliding down my cheek. Then he just stood there, daring me to retaliate. When I did nothing, he started taunting.
“Come on! You wrinkled old pile of dried-up shit!” he hissed. “Ain’t you going to do anything? . . . Hey, dead-dog breath! Come on, give me your best shot!”
I’ve never seen such an ugly expression on a human face. Like a scar carved by contempt. He started on with all this other sick stuff about old people and what he liked to do to them—what he was about to do to me.
“I’m going to cut out your stringy old guts, wrap them ’round your neck and leave you out to dry so they slowly strangle you. Got it? . . . Huh? . . . Do you hear me?” he shouted in an exaggerated fashion, as if my hearing was shot. “Should’ve been dead long ago,” he muttered.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I swore at him and turned to try to walk away. As I did so, something heavy hit me on the side of the head. I don’t know what. Maybe a baseball bat. The important thing was that the standoff had been broken, someone had struck me, and we all waited to see if there’d be any reaction.
I have to confess, in that brief moment I prayed for those damn things to work, for that sudden flash to sear down from the sky. When it didn’t, I knew it was all over, that I was about to die. Immediately they gave a kind of loud triumphant cheer and started jostling me.
Fortunately they didn’t have their machetes with them—they hadn’t come out with the intention of raiding—but they had other things, like bats and clubs. Somebody hit me a really painful blow from behind. I whirled around and managed to catch him and a couple of others with my shovel, knocking them to the ground. Trouble was, I was surrounded, and it gave another of them the opportunity to crack me so hard on the elbow it jarred the shovel right out of my hand.
Before I could pick it up, it was kicked away and someone else grabbed it. I was now alone, unarmed, and surrounded by a gang of over twenty kids, and all I could think to do was run.
I barged a couple of them aside and set off as fast as I could—which, I assure you, ain’t that fast—toward the city center, vaguely hoping that somewhere among the fog and ruins I might find a place to slip away. They came after me in a whooping horde, laughing cruelly, knowing they could pretty well run me down anytime they wanted.
I turned a corner, scaled a pile of rubble, and slipped and slid my way down the other side.
Someone threw what must have been a brick at me. Then another. I got hit on the back of the neck, right at the top of the spine, causing reverberations all the way down, but I still managed to lumber on. I guess they just wanted to get as much fun out of the situation as they could, to run me till I could run no more, till I dropped and offered them no resistance.
