by Arthur Stone
His hearing was poor after all that machine gun fire, but his sight was fine. The shadow of another car across the water slinked along the dam. Boiler had been surprised that such unimpressive persons as Ironpot and Clipper had managed to defeat Panther and his gang, who possessed such military training, discipline, and concentration. He had suspected they hadn’t been alone, that they had won by sheer supremacy of numbers and firepower, and now a second vehicle was approaching to confirm his suspicions. And perhaps a third. They’d have many questions for the sole survivor, and Boiler did not intend to allow a sequel to his interrogation. He’d had enough of questions.
The simplest answer he could think of was to swim to the concrete wall, use his arms to move along it, and make his way into a deep niche not far from him. It probably concealed a way through the dam.
He was wrong—it was just a niche, not very deep. But that was all right. There was plenty of room to hide in, and even if somebody took up position on top of the wall, they wouldn’t see Boiler.
His hearing still refused to wake, and all he could hear was an ominous rumble. He thought he could detect noises breaking through now and then, but try as he might, the details eluded him. He had been deafened twice now, after all. By that explosion on the road—likely several explosions—and then by that ludicrously protracted barrage of machine gun fire inside the truck.
At least his depth perception was back. The water had washed off whatever had stuck it closed, and he could see well from both eyes now. Some small fry darted about near the surface of the water. A plastic bottle slowly floated by, and he could make out the letters on its label.
To think that just yesterday, he was worried about being late to a date. Life had been so simple, so predictable. But now...
He had been through so much, all in less than a twenty-four-hour stretch. How was he still alive?
What was it Nimbler had said to him? In the Hive, you were a newcomer for your first month, at least. Maybe he had said a week. His memory of their question and answer sessions proved as dull as his sense of hearing. But he did remember Nimbler saying that very few managed to make it to one year.
Never mind a month. Much less a year. Surviving a single day here is an astonishing achievement.
Chapter 12
By the time Boiler swam for shore, twilight was retreating into night. He had camped in that life-saving niche for a couple of hours, resuscitating his hearing. It wasn’t as good as it had been—sounds were still strangely muffled—but it was no longer useless. He heard fish splashing, frogs croaking in the distance, and huge bubbles still emerging from where the truck had gone under. No engines, no voices, no gunshots, nothing else that indicated any human presence. Yet he had to allow that somebody might be there, tracking the scene of the disaster for any sign of movement.
The only alternative to moving was treading water until hypothermia killed him. The water had not been warm, and by the end it had started his teeth chattering and cooled too much for him to bear until dark. As logical a bookend to this day as pneumonia might have been, he decided his current problems were sufficient. His skull felt like his brain was trying to escape through his ears, and something was amiss with his leg, just above the knee. It creaked unhealthily. Bruises and abrasions covered him from head to toe.
And here comes the nausea. Maybe the repeated concussions had taken their toll, or maybe he needed a swig of lifejuice.
He moved, sticking close to the dam and keeping his gaze pointed upwards as he strained to avoid even the slightest splash. No gunfire. That was good. He hid beneath a low clay ledge, but it quickly petered out and relinquished him to the open water, where he was visible from every direction. The shallows were full of algae, and as he pushed his way through, his leg struck something unfriendly. A flash of incredible pain filled his mind, and he barely held himself back from screaming loud enough to be heard back in the world he grew up in. What the hell was that?
As he emerged from the water, Boiler limped so severely he needed his hands to keep from falling. He reached the nearby bushes, took cover, and sat down to stretch out his aching leg. It was bad. His pant leg was ripped open just above the knee, and a dark metal plate with jagged edges peeked out from a bleeding wound. This was no ordinary shard, either, though some shells could break up into pieces like this. Shells intended for foes more substantial than infantry.
He bit his lip, grabbed the scrap tightly, and pulled, but blood gushed from his mouth immediately. That won’t work. Breaking off a small dried piece of a bush, he cleared the twigs away and clenched the resulting branch between his teeth. Now he could pull. As long as he didn’t lose consciousness, for if he had learned anything so far, it was not to faint in this world, else he might wake up in someone’s handcuffs. Or in something’s belly.
Boy, did it hurt. So much that his hearing and vision retreated entirely, and the only meaningful sensory feedback he received other than pain was the disintegration of the branch he held between his teeth. It felt like he was drawing and quartering himself, and the piece of metal seemed endless.
But then it was out. The pain was torturous, and hot blood ran down his leg, but he didn’t care.
He looked at the shard. It was big, as long as his hand was wide, and he thanked the fates it went in narrow end first. A wound from the large end would have killed him as it severed veins and arteries, an injury impossible to treat anywhere but on the table of a conventional operating room.
Using a bundle of big leaves he had grabbed on the way up, Boiler pressed up against the bleeding gash, clenching his teeth and holding for another torturous eternity. It’d be best to sew the wound up, but how? He had nothing on his person except a few pieces of tattered clothing.
Once the bleeding had at last slowed, he applied a fresh bunch of leaves to the wound and tied it on with a strip of cloth torn from his pant leg. A mediocre dressing, but the best he could hope for.
Now to work on his ankle. It was wounded from when that unknown assailant had launched a grenade at him, or whatever that had been. The wound was small, and the shard had blown almost clean through his leg, carving a new residence for itself into his muscle and barely poking out the other side. He clenched his teeth yet again, tears flowing as he moaned and yanked at the bloody foreign object.
Some minutes later, this second wound was treated, and he set about figuring out what he was going to do next, without any experienced companions to guide him or any weapons to defend himself with. He was covered in fresh blood, and he could only surmise how those terrible creatures would react to that with their apparently excellent sense of smell. One leg was virtually lame, so escaping anything would be nigh impossible. Worst of all, he had no lifejuice.
Alright, enough moping. What did he have going for him? He was alive, and his stomach was making all kinds of noises, demanding food. That was a good sign. Dying people don’t have an appetite. But his hunger was a tarnished silver lining, at best, for he didn’t have a single scrap of sustenance on him.
Where could he find a weapon and some food? The truck was closest, but it was at the bottom of the lake, and Boiler was no fish. Diving into the muddy water at night to go searching a wreck wasn’t his thing. Even if he were a good swimmer, it’d be a dangerous move. Could he wait until morning? No, his diving skills were unlikely to improve from zero to excellent by the time the sun rose, but in the interim, what little strength remained in him might evaporate. And he had to remember that he had no lifejuice.
He had to get up and move. But where would he go? He had no idea where those morons had brought him. At the very least he knew he shouldn’t travel an active road, judging by his luck with them so far.
The moon was out and looked quite normal, but by its light he could see spots gloomily stuck to the horizon. Those spots had partly covered the Sun at times, and the sunset was all wrong. Boiler had never seen the Sun go black and melt into a splotchy ooze along the horizon.
Nothing in this world was normal. N
othing at all.
* * *
Crouching, he crossed the dirt road slowly and froze for a minute, his back propped against a flimsy fence. He heard and saw nothing, but a deafened man in total darkness can hardly rely on his senses. A herd of cows could stampede by a hundred paces away and he’d have no idea. If they were within fifty, he’d feel them, at least.
He made his way over the fence and looked around. The moon was touching the horizon by now, and there was no starlight, but he could see enough to know he was close to a village. A place with not a single window illuminated. He was walking through some kind of garden bed, though, which likely held at least something edible.
He touched the plants within his reach. No idea what that is. Next. Palms stretched out to either side, he advanced. Some kind of vine brushed his left hand, perhaps a pumpkin plant. He found the fruit, small and elongated, and sniffed it. He was in luck: it was a cucumber.
Not a soft cucumber, though, and any crunching noises might be heard all throughout the village. He took care with each bite, chewing as slowly as possible. One cucumber would not be enough to last him until morning, so he rummaged around, found more, and filled his pockets. Then he slowly approached a shed-like building, grabbed its door, and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. The greedy peasants had locked everything up, of course—he’d never get the door’s padlock off without making a terrible racket.
He proceeded to the first of the dark houses, tripped on a hose, and nearly fell. In his mind, he cursed the house’s owners for arming the yard with these common rubber tripwires to the detriment of relatively honest thieves like himself. He continued, more slowly.
Once he had reached the wall, he peered around the corner. Everything was quiet, and he saw a porch ahead. He was completely exposed on three sides, but in the dark everything feels different, lulling you into a sense of immunity from the gaze of strangers. He stepped onto the porch, shifting his weight carefully in an attempt to avoid any unnecessary creaking—and failing. At least the sound was quiet, almost as muted as the crickets. Fortunately, the door opened.
He kept his enthusiasm at the house’s hospitality in check. Who knew what was inside?
He opened it just a bit and listened. Silence. Either no one was inside, or someone was waiting for him with an ax, holding his breath and waiting for that beautiful moment when Boiler stepped in. No matter what, he had to enter.
The axman proved a fiction of his imagination, and the house was empty except for the cockroaches, mildew, and other unknown pests and growths. As putrid as its smell profile was, it had kept itself consolingly free of death.
The darkness outside was like noon compared to this house’s inner blackness. Boiler groped around, found a stool, and propped it up against the door so that he would hear the clatter if anyone opened it. A primitive alarm, but better than nothing.
Along he went, bumping into walls, feeling his way along furniture, and tripping into open holes, until at last he found an old sofa, sat down, and dug into his cucumbers. The windows muted the sound of the crickets, evidence of their unbroken state, but by this point Boiler didn’t give a damn who could hear his cucumber crunches. Soon his belly ceased its ravenous rumbling. His thirst now coaxed him to search for water, but he also felt more exhausted than a dead horse, so he collapsed onto his side and into sleep.
* * *
Boiler missed dawn, just as he had the day before, so he had no idea whether it was normal in this place or black like the sunset had been. Perhaps it had been green. Or crimson with green polka dots, for that matter.
His head was sore but functioning. His tongue had shriveled up from thirst, perhaps one of the first symptoms an immune suffered when in need of that sporejuice trash. Yesterday he had been drinking everything he could get his hands on, until he had bumped into Nimbler.
He looked around the room. The owners must have not had much—the place was poorly furnished. Everything was old, except for some of the windows, the wallpaper had been peeling off since the ‘90s, the ceiling was dotted with stains, and the furniture was falling apart. In the midst of this pandemonium of poor property value, the flatscreen TV looked quite out of place.
Where might he find a first aid kit? Boiler tried to avoid being seen from outside through the windows as he moved from room to room, examining every nook that might hold what he required.
He stumbled on a liter of clouded moonshine in the kitchen, then followed with a tactical blunder by opening the fridge. The queen of skunks would have suffered suicidal inferiority complex at the smell. Boiler slammed it shut, barely stifling a cough, but too late. The smell expanded to fill the whole house and announced it would not be evicted. Worse, it would be easy for beasts and humans alike to recognize. Boiler had caught a whiff of this exact odor earlier when he first arrived at this place, and his nose had quickly grown accustomed to it, but the latest olfactory calamity would not be ignored.
The great kitchen escape ensued. He could wait a little and then return and search the many cabinets without daring to touch the fridge. At least now he knew where to turn if he ever needed chemical warfare supplies.
One of the doors opened to a passage leading to the garage. Boiler noticed the car first. It was a Mazda, but he was interested in it for reasons other than drivability. This kind of house struck him as belonging to someone who took doomsday precautions, meaning there would be emergency supplies in the car.
Bingo. Under the driver’s seat a standard medkit rested, still unopened, blissfully oblivious to the deaths of everyone it had ever known. A few minutes later, Boiler was redressing his wound. He washed it with generous amounts of moonshine, examined it, and applied some of the kit’s iodine solution. The searing pain returned, yet he managed to bandage the injury up with a gauze pad.
He tried taking a few steps. Not bad. Almost no limp. Ah, the miracles you could perform with good medicine. Stitches would be better, but he’d have trouble finding suitable fishing line or surgical sutures, and no disinfectant could guarantee protection from infection.
Boiler proceeded to address his numerous small wounds. Iodine and bandages were enough for those. Dealing with his head was the worst part, but he found a mirror and was able to repair some of the damage. Again he rejected a fuller course of treatment: shaving his whole head and then treating his wounds. He was hesitant to do anything so drastic with no hot water, no good razor, and no help.
Searching the house yielded some worn but solid pants from some kind of athletic suit. They didn’t quite fit, but at least they had drawstrings. He proceeded to find a shirt and pick up a camo jacket from a hanger by the door. The new outfit he displayed was less than stylish, but it was adequate, and he doubted any fashion runway contests awaited him in the near future.
Boiler’s subsequent investigation of the garage rivaled the thoroughness of a man looking to commit murder and have it ruled an accident. The ax he found was too small for any serious violence, but it would come in handy. He fashioned a loop around his arm to hold it and thanked Dostoevsky for the inspiration, but ten seconds later he had judged Raskolnikov’s fictional comfort with this arrangement as unresearched and unrealistic. He improved the system with a piece of wire and a belt. Hah. Never thought I’d be the one to best Dostoevsky. Next, he found a crowbar. Thin, long, and heavy, with a comfortable grip and balance, it was definitely a keeper. After all, this guy’s older sibling had saved his life just yesterday. Was that really just yesterday?
Back in the kitchen, he looked around for a decent knife, after an obligatory but doomed search for a clothespin. The folding knife he found was unsuitable for combat but good for multiple more civilian applications.
The basement was dark, until he found a book of matches. He returned with two jars of pickles and one of stewed fruit, and soon his stomach was less hungry, his thirst less demanding, and his overall mood improved. He was grateful to this little house, but the time for farewells had come. To escape certain death, it was essential that he find s
ome decent people or get a hold of some spores, and lounging around on the couch was no progress towards either.
Chapter 13
The village’s dimensions exceeded Boiler’s estimation from the night before. He didn’t see any empties from his window or when he stepped outside, but this only served to heighten his apprehension. He was still suffering flashes from the memory of his recent struggle with the manmincer in the last deserted area he had happened upon. But there were no brick chimneys around here to save him. Just an ordinary little town.
He examined house after house, dreaming of finding a shotgun or hunting rifle but repeatedly exiting disappointed. Either this had been a pacifist compound, or someone had looted the place before him. An hour and a half of searching cast aside its disguise to reveal itself as a complete waste of time.
Almost complete, anyway. Boiler did find an acceptably worn backpack and tossed his jars of food and juice inside, along with the first aid kit, clearly an essential item in this hostile world. He relocated his still-awkward ax loop to the side of the pack, more comfortable yet still accessible if he needed to dismember a few ghouls. He discovered a means of transportation, too: a sturdy, comfortable bicycle. Cars were no option due to their volume. Those beasts had incredible hearing, and he was still plagued by nightmares of that Jeep and its peeled-off door. And the stripped carcass of its driver. And that reptile that had torn the roof of his car off faster than a sardine lid.
He pedaled his way out of the town. Perhaps this poor, pitiful village had saved his life, likely its most significant accomplishment over the whole duration of its existence. He rode past several piles of cow bones on the road and picked up his pace. The dirt road was decent, and he was glad not to notice any fresh tracks. With his recent luck, he feared the peace would be broken by another truck carrying a machine gun and a pile of dumb assholes.
