by T. Wyse
"We went through them, figure at least with walls around us we’ll be able to sleep. We found your house, go inside, and you come out of the darkness at us like some crazed shadow." M'grevor chuckled.
"I was a little crazy by that point." Timothy offered apologetically. "But once you all talked to me, once I knew you were okay, and not some awful demon from the night, I tried to welcome you as best as I could."
"Absolutely, and we thank you for it, though Steph and Lour aren't with us I thank you on their behalf as well." The oldest man said appreciatively. "So, tell us your story then."
Timothy began speaking, relating his small tale. His voice betrayed a nervousness and shyness absent from M'grevor's telling, he was also much more abrupt. "Well, I was back from school, I'm usually back right away. I was a little late that day, but still soon enough to beat everyone else home." He made a mournful sigh.
"Then, well, the wave happened. I didn't see it, I was watching television, and the power went out. It's annoying, but it's something that happens. What was unusual about it was that the house started to creak and groan. I look around, and the windows are gone, gone, just like that." He said with exasperated confusion. "Not only that, but I look out the window and everything's dirt, nothing but dirt. Like some stupid joke the house's fence is still around, but in the front, the road is gone, the people that must have been out there are gone, the trees, the birds are all gone."
"I tried looking around, tried the neighbors, but for some reason their houses they lost their roofs, or collapsed. I'm the only one left from my area."
"I just, I guess I just kept going as best as I could. I don't know, just was in a daze, like a dream." Timothy sighed. "I met you there, on the second night, and in the morning I had a purpose again, you wanted to make maps, to figure out what survived and what didn't, figure out where things were and stuff like that. Was a good enough plan for me." The boy chuckled.
"Been travelling with you ever since. Hasn't been too great, but we've found some places, helped some people find shelter. Met Donna's group too. They've put down roots while we wander, trying to find something we aren't entirely sure of."
"We'll know it when we find it I guess." Timothy added, with a hopeful chime.
"So, how about you Nicholas?" Timothy prompted the third speaker.
"Well, myself I'm a carpenter, do furniture, that sort of thing. I do some teaching at a tech college part time, and that's where I was when the 'wave' hit us. I was sitting under this beautiful tree, older than the school, bigger than a house. It's where I go for inspiration of things, trying to incorporate art into the craft."
"I saw it then, like some wall, red steam, evaporating the world under it. I just sat there, not knowing what to think, let alone what to do, sat there as the damned wall passes right over me." He sighed, seemingly more frustrated at his lack of knowledge, than horrified at what he had experienced. "Next thing I know, I'm sitting under my same tree, only its branches are bare, like in winter, but all around me it's nothing but this stupid soil. Funny thing is, there was grass too, but spindly and only stretching out inside where the tree's shadow falls."
“Thing is not only the grass and tree are left, for whatever reason the entire elder wing of the college is intact!” He exclaimed with surprise even at this repeat telling. “I thought, there must be a bunch left alive inside, right?” He paused dramatically, allowing Amelie to think of the somber answer.
“Well there aren’t. Only a handful left.” He sighed. “There was food and water at least, half of them wanted to just stay put, stay for help. The others thought that it must’ve been a biohazard area, something like that.”
“Everyone was pretty panicked though, they could all agree on that.” He laughed sadly. “Well I’m with a few people scavenging and arranging what we’ve got to survive on, and that takes us into the night.” His voice lowered, to a near whisper.
“It was so faint at first, this sound almost like singing. It was so quiet, but it was so piercing too, you couldn’t even drown it out by plugging your ears. I couldn’t understand the words thankfully, but it was clear enough. There was something out there in the darkness, something taunting us.”
“I got the hell out of there with the first light of morning, didn’t even look back. I took the people who would come with me, older man and this lady. Man’s tired, and the lady’s nuts, but both of them are sane enough to see that staying put is bad news. We managed to find a decent set of shelter the first night, and the singing didn’t follow us.” His voice carried a sweet relief. “Even found some dodgy looking tinned food. More or less the same story the second day, didn’t meet up with M’grevor until the third, later in the afternoon when we were scoping for a place to crash.”
"Story's about the same as Tim's after that. Met Donna for the first time today, visited the Menagerie before that, they seem more collected than we are for sure." Nicholas caught himself. "Oh, Menagerie, I mean the Macca Tech folks, or Machka-whatever, pain to say the real thing. Even the kids just call it Macca.”
“It's a pretty strange place, was a private boarding school before, like a prep school for rich folks who want some weird sort of curriculum, not big on the details. They've got themselves together, but they’re only willing to take in children and the younger folks, they help everyone else set up with gear though, good lot. I'm sure everyone here will meet their group sooner or later."
They spent what seemed like the better part of the day, and the afternoon on the road like that. The three men compared mundane notes, and plot points that seemed to be intended for mapping purposes. They didn't cross paths with any other humans along the path they followed. What bothered her more than the absence of humans, though she was glad to not have to see the waste they travelled through, was the fact that all of this time had passed and yet they still didn't feel comfortable enough to uncover her, to let her breathe air that wasn't so stale and oppressive. Her arms and legs ached from the stillness, was this entirely necessary? Were the crows still following them, watching them? Amelie hadn't heard any sign of them for herself since they had left.
The men shared other stories, hearsay from second and third hand sources. They'd crossed paths with groups of people, mostly ones travelling to one point or another, in hopes of finding something that wasn't a dull, silent dirt. The stories from these groups were more or less what Amelie would have expected. Most people's minds had fractured slightly, leading to a delusional, if mild, madness. Some had turned to violence, refusing to leave the shelter they could find, even though staying there would certainly mean their deaths. Others delved inward, looking to escape in themselves, to deny the evidence of the world around them.
The stories were all the same though in the end. Everyone who had survived had seen everything around them reduced to nothingness by the wave. There were no reports that were particularly hopeful, or optimistic.
"There's the house now." M'grevor announced finally, Amelie wanted to groan in relief but stifled it, forcing herself to remain still.
The last stretch of the journey felt like a very long time indeed. Finally, the rumbling sensation paused briefly, and the sound of a smaller, metal hinged gate creaked open. The light through the canvas dimmed substantially, and the rumbling movement that her body had become accustomed to over this journey ceased.
She felt numb and simultaneously ached from every single pore of her body.
The cool air washed over her sweat stung brow, but the tarp’s removal only revealed darkness. The wind yawned out before her, and her heart fluttered with relief as the world opened up once more.
Another roof above her head, though no ornate coloured glass in the entryway. The spaces within passed wind with a tired sigh, but it breathed nonetheless. Tight corridors wound around the floor, with doors turning crisply out like soldiers. The cart clotted the foot flow of the front hallway, having been babied in with perhaps an inch to spare on either side. This separated her and the two who were now unloading t
he cart from M’grevor, who now stared down at her, squinting against the dark.
“Up we go. No sense going through the kitchen.” One of the trunked arms lowered into view. “Ready?”
With only a stiff groan she grappled the arm and was tugged free, up and over the tilted edge. He let her down onto the floor softly, but her naked feet were immediately lapped by the roughness of the floor boards.
"You alright?" He asked worriedly. "That was too long, way too long. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, just let me get the socks on.” Reaching for them inside the bundle with shaking hands, her legs wobbled to support her. He steadied her as she took to one foot, some of the thin patterned wooden tiles sticking to her foot wholesale.
“Uh, sorry. They just came up.” The two clacked loosely into the floor like a pair of dominoes.
“Uh, yeah. That’s fine. They’ve been loose for ages. Don’t worry about it. Used to be a rug there but it was getting filthy,” Tim said, popping in and out of the kitchen’s door as he spoke.
Kokopelli gingerly pounced from the cart after a protracted stretch, landing without so much as a rattle from the loose tiles. He at least looked no worse for the wear.
“So dark,” Amelie mumbled, the wool socks only making more of the tiles catch and loose as she shuffled dazedly. Slits of light cut across the kitchen, shining against the polished metal of a newish stovetop. Down the hall another set of the razor beams cut across a couch in a more open aired space.
“We boarded the windows early on. I would’ve done it, but I didn’t have the wood or the…well…” Timothy popped in and out, his lungs puffing like a cooling locomotive. “Well, we weren’t kidding about the nights. You just can’t sleep without walls around you, solid walls.”
The walls here didn’t seem so remarkably solid to Amelie, however. Smooth glass surfaces upon the air showed her what were either paintings or portraits, the figures shrouded in the haze. The wind also showed her the cracks in the walls, the glaring and jagged holes that all of the framed memories covered up. Indeed the house seemed to breathe a musty continuous sigh up between the floorboards. Geysers of thick and slow air made their way through the cracks and slithered across the walls, disappearing into the filtered ceiling.
There was a smell here too, one of earth and soil, but of the old soil, of fungus and subtle rot.
“C’mere.” M’grevor scooped her up so that she was crisscrossed with light, and his great lungs seized. “Oh no, you’re covered in bruises.”
“It probably looks worse than it is, I…” She glanced down. The pajamas had bunched up around her legs, and the sleeves had done the same. Her arms and legs were indeed decorated with darkened spots.
“I, please, don’t worry…about it.” She pushed her way down to her feet and tugged the fabric back into concealing place. They didn’t hurt at least, not yet.
“Well, welcome to my house Amelie, as much as it is.” Timothy offered, holding from the cargo to give a worried look. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, crows or no crows.”
“Thank you.” Her smile was lost in the darkness and its life was brief as her legs trembled.
"Alright, let's get you set up in a bed," M'grevor ordered.
“If it’s that bad, have Lil take a look at her when she gets back,” Nicholas added, still not stopping his work.
“No it’s okay. Really. I’ve had worse…”
“Set her up in the pink room. She can use the bed for today. We can figure it out with the others tomorrow.” Timothy offered.
“Right, do you want me to carry you? The stairs are a little steep.” He offered his braced arm yet again.
“No, I’m fine, really.” She tried to smile and take his hand, but winced, her stupid foot knocking into the first step.
Kokopelli slid up the stairs with tireless grace, sharpened red slits watched silently as she struggled up the ascent.
7
Arrival
Each step along the stairs groaned in protest of her offending feet, giving an echoing grumble as she passed. An aged red carpet hugged the central path of the stairs, adding a bristly brushing sound to her ascent.
Against the friction, against her own exhaustion and throbbing pain, she rose the final triumphant step into the slatted light of the second floor. The floor here creaked with every limping step, and the walls seemed to clack and groan without prompting or purpose.
“It’s a little loud, I’ll give you that, but it’s sturdy,” M’grevor chuckled, rising up after her into the landing.
Another carpet, smooth and quiet and with little resistance to her passing, flowed down the length of the hallway. The only illumination filtered rebelliously through a tightly packed set of boards blotting out the window’s memory.
"Where did the boards come from?" She asked as they passed the window. Even in the dim light she could tell the boards were of material alien to this house. She stopped at the window a moment, and in a motion that would make her father proud, she pressed an eye up against one of the larger cracks. She saw nothing but glaring white through the boards.
“Well, you’ll have to understand, we have a system. It’s a good, decent system.” M’grevor paused, running a hand along the handiwork. “We took them from the houses nearby. They were all wrecks though. All a mess. We didn’t make any ruins, and we didn’t make any ruin worse than it was.”
His breath was hushed, held back, worried in some respect, but calm.
“So there really wasn’t anyone there?” She asked, leaning up against the boards and secreting a habitual scratch of her back. “Even if there weren’t, don’t they still belong to people?”
“Nobody around no. Believe me we looked, we did what we could. I won’t lecture you on necessities or anything like that, just trust that we have a system. We only take what we need to live, to help others, and to reinforce the house. Tim’s even got it down to numbers, keeps us all honest.”
"I don't know, it still seems wrong, even now." She averted her gaze from his, and looked at the closed window, trying feebly to reach out her perceptions on the trickle of air flowing through them. Would they be missed, were those planks that supported someone, or something?
He shrugged, and made a great glowing sigh in response.
“Mrs. Woolley didn’t need to take from other people.” She leaned against the boards and scratched with greater fury. “They might not be dead. They might have just been gone for a while, like you were.”
“Donna was uniquely prepared. Hell, the Macca people make her look careless, but not all of us can be so…graced with foresight, I suppose.” He sighed. “We keep track of it, all of it. We take what we can, make do with what we can. If someone comes calling for their things, well…” His face shifted to the boards. “Then they can take it out of me.”
Amelie pressed her face against the window again, trying to see out, trying to see beyond the stolen lumber. She thought of all those empty houses, crumbling and being picked through by his group of survivors. The thought left her with a gloomed feeling in the back of her mind.
"Are they still out there? Did they follow the entire way?" She asked bluntly.
"Yes, some. Little devils circled above us like vultures.” M'grevor looked down at her, his face darkened completely in contrast from scrutinizing the light through the window. "Strange tidings, to be sure."
So not a clean escape, but at least the danger had been pushed off for now. She began to itch at her arm and inadvertently whimpered as she dug at one of the burning bruises, her knee buckling slightly and ramming into the wall.
“That’s enough pretending.” He grabbed her shoulders and propped her up. “Let’s get you into that bed. There’s always time to yell at me later,” he offered. He made a motion to hoist her up, but she stopped him.
"No, I'm fine. I'll walk." She insisted.
"Nobody would fault you a little weakness." He sighed, but obliged. He offered his arm, grasping hers tightly. "We've all been t
hrough enough, that we don't have to hide these things from each other. Everyone's got huge burden, and you've one larger than most of us it seems." His smile was almost lost in the dimness.
She proceeded down the hallway, unsure and slow footsteps braced by her large support. There were three doors down the hallway, and a fourth facing the stairs going further up. They came to the first door, and M'grevor motioned slightly at the closed door. "Tim and Nich sleep in here, was Tim's room before."
They proceeded further down the hallway, "Just a warning, the two in here are still adjusting. They're mostly harmless, just try to be calm." They passed to the second door. "I sleep in here along with, Charles," he motioned at a rumpled figure lying sleeping on the ground on a cot. "And Elizabeth." He motioned to another figure hunched over mumbling in the darkness. The words were unintelligible and frantic.
The figure of Elizabeth looked up, exposing the contours of a face. She stood up, and with a quick, excited motion came to the door. M'grevor let go of Amelie's hand, and stood to barricade the door between the woman and herself.
"Is that him?!" Elizabeth struggled to gaze at Amelie in the insufficient light of the hallway.
"No 'Liz, not him. We're still looking." He said sadly.
"Um, hello ma'am, my name is Amelie."
"Have you been travelling, child, have you seen my husband, or my son?" The woman asked with quick lucidity. She still struggled halfheartedly against M'grevor's arm, to get closer to Amelie.
"She's been with Donna's bunch the whole time. Sit down, and calm yourself Elizabeth." He said with a warning tone.
This served simply to further animate the woman, she became manic, screaming: "They're dead! They're gone!" She looked directly at Amelie, and with a trembling darkness said: "I saw him, my little boy, he vanished before my eyes, I was there, I could have reached out to him, but he was gone, taken just like that." She fell to the ground, kneeling, holding her head in despair. Her breaths were quick gasps, the wind erupting from her chaotic and wild.
