Madelyn's Last Dance

by Ike Hamill

  She stopped at the edge of the fire.

  There was no clicking. She felt no danger on the air. Still, it was stupid to be standing right next to all that heat. If there were a Roamer, even one, it would be headed her direction.

  The thought brought the image of tossing a grenade over her shoulder as she ran. Elijah had told her about that. He had said that it was a good way to evade the Roamers. The idea that he was gone was even harder to accept.

  She returned to Jacob and Harper.

  They walked to the shopping center, stopping several times to listen.

  “We should have brought Logan. I think his hearing is as good as Elijah’s was. Where was he today?” Madelyn asked.

  “Scarlett took him back to Addison so he could finish healing,” Harper said.

  Madelyn nodded. They stopped with the center in the distance. The flames were difficult to see in the bright sun, but the column of smoke was undeniable. The fire was strong. Several people stood near it, watching the burn.

  Jacob and Harper glanced at each other and they started across the parking lot. Madelyn caught up.

  “What’s going on?” Jacob asked Andrew.

  “Someone said that the Hunters were gone. I came to find out,” Andrew said. He put up his hands. “No sign of them.”

  Harper turned to Madelyn. “Is this what it was like before the cull? You could just walk anywhere you wanted without worrying about Hunters?”

  “No,” Madelyn said. “It was a different place. There were a lot more threats, they just weren’t as obvious.” She left them at the fire and walked towards the building. On the way, she picked up a stout piece of metal. She took it with her down the stairs and paused while she looked at the dark room. Her eyes were still good in the dark—at least as good as they had been. The small amount of light that leaked down the stairs let her see the jail cell.

  She opened the cell door.

  Madelyn swung her piece of metal like an axe. First, she broke the lock. Next, she destroyed the hinges. When she was done, her ears were ringing from the sound of metal colliding with metal. The door to the jail cell was dismantled. She tossed it across the room.

  Madelyn leaned against the desk.

  If she concentrated, she could still smell Elijah in the room. She smelled the soap that he made and scrubbed himself with each morning. When she had first come to town, Harper had been leery and everyone else had been hostile.

  Elijah was the first nice person she had met. He had treated her like a human even though they had been on opposite sides of the bars. He had trusted her with an unlocked door, and then saved her before she could die. But to save her, he had stolen her humanity.

  Madelyn didn’t know whether to love him or hate him for that.

  “Aunt Mac?” Jacob called from the top of the stairs. “Are you down there?”

  She dropped the bar and it clanged to the floor. Madelyn took a deep breath and headed for the door. Jacob stood there, lit from behind. She saw the change in his stance as he recognized her shape emerging from the darkness. To him, she was no longer a monster.

  “Everyone thinks that the Hunters are gone,” Jacob said. “More and more are gathering at the fire.”

  “Tell them to disperse,” Madelyn said as she climbed. “There’s no reason to press our luck.”

  Jacob shrugged.

  She followed him down the corridor and then out into the main part of the building. Madelyn looked up past the second floor balcony to the skylights above. Through the film of dirt on the glass, she saw the blue sky.

  “Will people ever be able to build anything like this again?” she asked.

  “We could build it now,” Jacob said. “But why would we bother?”

  “There’s no energy to synthesize, manufacture, or create fuel. What are people going to do? They’ll use up the buildings and materials around them, and then what?”

  “We’ll figure out how it used to be done,” Jacob said. “There was a time before Q-batteries, right? There were other fuels.”

  They stopped at the glass doors and looked out across the parking lot.

  “Those other techniques were developed by millions of people over hundreds of years,” Madelyn said. “People here will be long dead before that technology is reproduced. We’re still reliant on the leftover toys from a more capable society. Now all those toys have gone dead.”

  “You underestimate people,” Jacob said. “In Oslo, we hardly used power at all. It’s easy to make a greenhouse and use natural fertilizer. It’s not hard to hand-pump drinking water. I even knew people who could hunt perfectly well with a bow and arrow. We’ll be okay.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Madelyn said.

  They stepped outside.

  “And if people are right—if the Hunters really are gone—then we can do anything. We could make big fields and grow crops. We can go on hunting trips and bring down big game. The world would be ours.”

  Madelyn smiled. She wished that she could tell the difference between optimism and naiveté.

  Madelyn’s eyes caught movement at the edge of the lot. She grabbed Jacob’s arms as the bushes began to shake. A second later, a young man burst from the underbrush and ran across the lot towards the gathering.

  Madelyn exhaled.

  The people gathered around the newcomer and he delivered his news. The reaction was odd. People turned away from him and returned to the fire. There was little conversation that Madelyn could see.

  “We should go find out what’s happening,” Jacob said. Madelyn nodded. They started across the lot. Jacob wasn’t moving very fast. Madelyn understood his resistance. He wanted the day to be full of good news. Harper saw them approaching. She turned away from the fire and came to them.

  As Harper came to a stop in front of them, she told what she knew. “Cleo is dead. They said her heart gave out.”

  Jacob looked down for a second and then took Harper’s hand.

  “I know,” she said.

  “One less thing to worry about,” Madelyn said.

  Jacob frowned. “All of us are precious.”

  “I’m not sure she shared that philosophy,” Madelyn said.

  Chapter 52

  {Distance}

  MADELYN’S EYES LOOKED OUT and scanned the horizon. She was wrapped in the fur of a big male bear. She had killed him in the height of mating season. Her own scent was masked by his. The shape and smell of her with that hide did a good job at warding off predators. She could protect herself, but the attacks slowed down her travel.

  When Elijah had described his journey from the ice shelf to Fairbanks, it had sounded like a quick trip. Madelyn felt like she had been walking forever.

  She had finally found it.

  The blue ice rose up from the ground and blended into the sky. It almost looked like she had found the place where the dome met the Earth. She was in a giant terrarium and was at the edge. Madelyn walked through the swamp grass. She wanted to touch that ice before she turned around.

  The walking was more and more difficult as she approached. The ground was saturated with cold water. Her feet sank into the freezing mud. Madelyn followed paw prints. The big cat had figured out the best path through the soggy terrain.

  Madelyn wondered at the size of the thing. With her fingers spread wide, she couldn’t cover the print. How much would that cat weigh? Two-hundred kilograms? Three-hundred? She looked to the north and wondered how long it would take the cats to find the people of Fairbanks. Now that the monitors on the southern border had gone dark, what would scare away the predators?

  Bears were easy. They were loud, lumbering oafs that scavenged more than hunted. The big cats were different. They made about as much noise as water rolling down a window.

  Madelyn caught a scent and looked up. After a second, she spotted the pair of eyes looking at her. The cat was halfway up the wall of ice, peering at her over a ledge. Madelyn took out her knife and started to climb.

  It might have been the bear fur
, or maybe it was her calm determination. Something spooked the cat. She saw it’s tufted tail as it scrambled away from its kill. The cat had taken a deer and dragged it up the ice so it could feed in peace.

  Madelyn used her knife to take the best of the deer. She wrapped the meat, stowed it in her bag, and then climbed back down. Her bear skin was muddy and wet at the edges. She tried to hold it up as she crossed back over the marsh.

  She stopped again at the edge of the woods and built a fire. She made a scaffolding of sticks and set up the meat to cook. She stretched her bear skin between trees so it could dry out. It made a nice tent as a light rain began to fall.

  Madelyn looked out across the marsh at the ice. On top of the ice, a dark shape could have been the cat. She watched it for a while and then decided it was a bird. Her eyes were getting worse.

  The wind shifted and the rain turned to snow.

  Madelyn extended her hand from under the fur and caught a few fat flakes. They melted as she brought them back to her mouth. The snow tasted of ash. Her fire popped.

  Brook had encouraged her to go see Addison. The woman wasn’t a healer, but she had some connection to the medical profession in her past. Addison was unfazed by the collapse of the machines. She had taken Madelyn to the old hospital, up on the top floor. They rigged the old solar panels to power the equipment. Addison had examined Madelyn’s blood.

  “You’re getting old,” Addison had said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Madelyn had asked.

  It took several tries before the explanation made any sense. There was a lot of scientific jargon that Madelyn didn’t understand. Brook did her best to translate. Madelyn’s cells had been altered by the Roamers. They had repaired her telomeres and replaced certain genes. But, now that they had been deactivated, Madelyn’s DNA was returning to its natural state.

  “With a vengeance,” Addison had said. “I’m guessing that some cells are going to age faster than others.”

  Madelyn didn’t know if she should be afraid or relieved. She was somewhere in between, and there was no telling where her body would go. As far as she knew, she was the first person who had ever endured this reverse-transformation.

  It was soon after that news that she decided to take her trip. Before her body collapsed—if that’s what it was headed for—she wanted to see the borders of her world. She wanted to witness it all with her own eyes.

  Madelyn slept. She ate some of the smoked meat, and then slept again. Maybe it was the fire or the musk from the bear fur, but nothing bothered her campsite.

  # # # # #

  Madelyn was sweating under her cloak.

  She drank from the stream and looked out across the plain. Life faded out in front of her. The grass below her feet still had a hint of green. A hundred meters farther and it was yellow. In the distance, there was nothing but brown.

  She had been following the stream as it wound down through the mountains. As it reached the plain, the water simply petered out into nothing. It simply disappeared into the parched earth.

  Madelyn started to cross the plain.

  After a kilometer or so, she picked up the remnants of an old road.

  The sun was nearly constant in the sky. It dipped below the horizon as she walked and then climbed back up. Madelyn turned back and looked at the mountains to the south. Maybe this was far enough. Maybe she had seen all that she needed to see of the scorched north.

  But there was one more place on her list.

  She kept walking.

  They looked like gophers, popping out of their holes and then disappearing. Madelyn kept walking. She took down her hood, so they wouldn’t mistake her for a bear.

  Madelyn stopped when she was still fifty meters from the nearest hole.

  “Come on out,” she said.

  She saw another head pop up and then disappear into a hole that was over near a low building. They were trying to lure her in. She didn’t mind. She was trying to coax them out.

  Madelyn kept walking. She sensed the people hiding in the holes that she passed. She didn’t reveal that she had spotted the secret hole, covered by a mat of dried grass.

  She let them track her and hunt her. She sniffed the wind for gunpowder. There was nothing obvious, but that wasn’t conclusive. Her nose had been getting worse and worse over time.

  Finally, a woman emerged from behind a building. She held a metal spear at her side. Madelyn sensed two others behind her. If they were willing to show her a spear, Madelyn wondered what weapons the two behind her carried.

  “Hello,” Madelyn said.

  “Ho,” the woman called.

  “Is this Deadhorse?”

  “It’s dead everything,” the woman said. She pointed the spear at the ground as she approached.

  Madelyn tried to guess her age. From the way she walked, she was beyond child-bearing years, but not by much. Madelyn had barely registered the sound when her own legs sprang. The arrow sailed through the space that Madelyn had just occupied as she hit the ground and rolled. The woman with the spear advanced and another arrow sliced the air just above Madelyn’s head.

  One archer was already drawing back another arrow. Madelyn threw her knife in his direction. She hoped only to disturb his aim and make him miss again, but she got lucky. As the man tried to dodge the knife, the blade caught his bow and he lost his grip on the arrow. It hit the ground near the second archer. That man lost his arrow as well. Madelyn smiled as she sprinted for the first man. He barely had time to register her attack before he was flying backwards with Madelyn’s arms around his waist.

  He pushed her away. Madelyn snatched his knife from its sheath and pulled the man to his feet. She got behind him as the next arrow flew from his comrade’s bow. The arrow punched through the man. She saw the tip burst through his back and then stop.

  She supported him as he gasped for breath.

  “He needs help,” Madelyn said. “I’ll let him go if you put down your weapons.” She put the man’s own knife to the side of his throat.

  The archer took the arrow from his bow and put his arms down at his sides. The woman stabbed the point of her spear in the ground. It was close enough. Madelyn snapped off the tip of the arrow and then reached around her hostage to jerk the rest of the arrow out. He gasped and fell back into her. Madelyn pulled a wrap from under her cloak and stuffed it into his wound. The standoff continued until the wounded man started to scream. Madelyn let him settle to the ground as she backed away. His two friends came forward cautiously. Their eyes jumped between Madelyn and the man.

  “He will be okay. Don’t let him get his fingers in there,” Madelyn said.

  The archer put down his bow and pulled up his friend’s shirt. They saw the wound just as it started to close. Madelyn saw the fear and wonder in their eyes. They had probably forgotten about science a long time ago.

  “Where are the rest of you?” Madelyn asked. While she eyed the people, Madelyn circled to where her knife had landed. She picked up her own knife and dropped the one that she had stolen from the wounded man.

  “In a safe place,” the woman said.

  Madelyn raised her eyebrows.

  “Go get them,” Madelyn said. “We have to trade.”

  The woman shook her head. “We don’t trade. And you don’t have anything we want.”

  “Which is it? You don’t trade, or I don’t have anything? Your second answer made a lie out of your first,” Madelyn said.

  The wounded man sat up despite the objections of the archer. He coughed and then tried to make his way to his feet. Meanwhile, the archer lifted the back of the man’s shirt and saw the closed wound there.

  “The catastrophic wraps are like magic on puncture wounds,” Madelyn said. “He’ll be fine in no time.”

  “How did you do it?” the archer asked.

  “See? And this one said I had nothing to trade.”

  The woman with the spear frowned and whistled. Madelyn saw a shadow and turned to see a little head poke u
p from one of the gopher holes. She felt something moving underground. It was like the sound of a rabbit in a warren.

  The door to one of the low buildings opened and an old man took a step down. He squinted against the light.

  “Over here,” Madelyn said, waving. She didn’t want to be surrounded. When she had pulled their group together somewhat, she turned to the old guy. “I want to trade.”

  “I heard you,” he said. He wiped the corners of his eyes with his sleeve. His shirt looked like it might have been clean sometime before Madelyn was born. His pants were more hand-sewn patches than original material.

  “Make your offer,” the old man said as Madelyn assessed him.

  “I want to see your festival—the one where you call the Crows. I’ll give you…” Madelyn paused so they would know that she was carefully considering what she would give up. “I’ll give you one kilo of smoked meat and one wrap.”

  The old man smiled at the offer. He showed her his terrible teeth and then laughed.

  “I don’t need your meat. It’s probably shot through with prions anyway. And your wraps don’t interest me.”

  “Then how about you show me the festival and I’ll let you live, you dirty cannibal?” Madelyn asked.

  The man’s smile disappeared.

  His answer was quiet, but Madelyn’s ears were still good enough to hear every word. “We honor the flesh here.”

  “I’ll honor it too,” Madelyn said. “After I kill you, I’ll make a fire that touches the sky. I’ll burn your bodies until they’re nothing but dust.”

  Several of them gasped at the idea.

  “Get out of here,” the old man said. “Go south and don’t bother us again.”

  “Not until I see the festival,” Madelyn said.

  “You won’t kill all of us,” the woman with the spear said. She was standing a bit apart from the others. Madelyn gauged the distance to her and saw how far apart the archer’s bow and arrow were.

  It was a risk. Madelyn decided to take it.