by David Klass
What is it? I ask Morgan, who has dismounted and is furiously rooting around in his rucksack.
Glagour, he says, and I can sense his fear. Heading our way fast.
As if reaching the same dread conclusion, the nematodes suddenly begin corkscrewing themselves into the ground at a furious rate. They soon vanish.
Shouldn’t we crawl down after them? I ask.
No use. They will go too far down. And they’ll use their tails to completely seal the burrows with rocks and sand so the glagour can’t follow. High heat. No air. We’d die.
I look back at him. Okay, so we can’t escape. Next question—do glagour eat humans?
Can’t eat him. No teeth. No mouth.
That’s a relief.
Will attach to him. Imbibe him through membranes. Suck his body fluids first. Then the skin. Last the bones. Nothing left. Not a hair, not a tooth. No more Morgan. No more Jack. Drained and absorbed.
I feel myself tremble. What the hell are they?
Morgan has found what he’s looking for. A couple of heavy black raincoats and protective pants. Vivified offscourings.
What?
Incarnated refuse. Put this on if you want to live.
I notice he already has the black pants on and is slipping on the jacket. I follow his lead. They’re actually full-body suits, made out of some sort of thick synthetic material. As I pull on my pants I ask him, You mean the glagour are pollution that’s come to life?
Morgan doesn’t know if they’ve come to life, but they can move and find food and absorb it and replicate.
They sound pretty alive to me. Are you sure these suits will save us?
No. Zip it up. Any holes will let them in.
I seal it carefully. It’s bulky, almost tentlike. Before zipping up the hood and face mask, I take one last look around. Something is blotting out the moon. Morgan, the moon is winking out.
The glagour! Seal his hood!
Okay, I’m fully zipped. Gloves. Booties. Pants. Jacket. Hood and mask. I can’t see. What do we do when they come?
Lie flat and pretend you’re part of the crust. Morgan wishes him good luck and a fast death if it comes to that. I hear Morgan’s body thud onto the sand.
Good luck and a fast death to you, old pal, I reply, and I sprawl down awkwardly next to him. The synthetic suit absorbs most of the heat, but it’s still like lying on a waffle iron. There’s a thin breathing tube, which makes every breath an effort in frustration. Morgan, I’m asphyxiating and toasting.
Keep still. The more he moves, the longer they will stay. Morgan can hear them coming.
I can, too. A shrill, high-pitched whine fills the air. It sounds like a hundred dentist’s drills descending on me. I try to remain motionless and become one with the crust.
Maybe the glagour will pass over us.
Something lands lightly on my ankle, with the impact of a Wiffle ball. Instinctively I try to kick it off. Big mistake. A second one lands. Then a third. Soon they come thudding down like hailstones.
But hailstones don’t get hungry and move around. I can feel the glagour crawling over me. Searching for an opening. There must be thousands of them—it’s like being buried under a blanket of blood-famished, whining mosquitoes.
I try to lie still, and to use what Eko taught me to empty my mind of all panic.
It’s absolutely impossible. The prospect of being absorbed by living pollution is too much for me. There’s no way to shut out the horrific feel of them squirming over every inch of my body. I start thrashing, and I hear myself screaming.
Next to me, Morgan also starts shrieking out loud. We don’t try to communicate with each other or shout words or phrases—we’re both beyond hysterical, making primitive, terrified sounds as we roll back and forth and occasionally knock into each other.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. I’m not exactly sure how long I lie there howling and thrashing about. All I know is that at a certain point sanity begins to return in dribs and drabs, and I regain some control. Morgan, I ask telepathically, are they gone? Are you still there?
Still, still. Quiet, quiet. Could be a trick. They may come back.
So we lie still and silent. The heat from the crust is intense, and the breathing tube seems clogged. Finally I can’t stand it any longer.
I unzip the mask and hood and look around. Morgan, I think they’re gone.
So is one of the nematodes.
I turn and see that only one of the giant worms has crawled back out onto the crust.
What happened to the other one?
The glagour breached its burrow and absorbed it.
I hope it didn’t suffer too much.
As Morgan’s dear mother used to say: There is no good way to die, but there are many very bad ways.
Your mother had a way with words, I tell him.
A few seconds later we’re both mounted on the sole surviving nematode, and it sets off into the darkness.
12
We speed-slither for hours. A sandstorm rages around us and we cling to our mount and tear through the heart of it. It’s like tobogganing through a blast furnace.
As the storm ebbs, I see that the terrain has changed. Rock outcroppings poke through the sand and soon give way to great boulders which hunch in the moonlight. Hills and mountains rise in the distance, and soon the crumbling remains of towns and small cities appear. We pass silent urban graveyards where the sand has swallowed fallen skyscrapers, and the tops of minarets jut up like the desperate limbs of drowning swimmers between waves of gravel and rocks.
Damascus, Morgan tells me.
It seems incredible that a thriving metropolis stood here for millennia. Is Paris like this? I ask the Gorm. And then I hesitate. And what about New York?
Gone, all gone, he replies simply, and then he tenses.
Shadows scuttle around the ruins. Humans! Desperate women and children emerge from hiding places and hold out hands as we speed by. They’re begging for food and they look like they need it—haggard faces, unprotected from the glare. Stick-thin bodies poking out of ragged clothes.
Can we stop and give them some water? I ask Morgan.
We can’t help them, he answers. They were fools to show themselves. And then I hear true panic in Morgan’s telepathic warning: Get down! A Jasai!
I see him duck his head so that he’s practically kissing the nematode. Something he saw terrified him. I can’t stop myself from glancing back at the beggars.
They’re also reacting. Fleeing in all directions. Mothers pulling small kids along. But they only get a few steps. A tall man dressed all in billowing black, like the ghost of death itself, hurls himself at them from atop a boulder and for a moment in the moonlight I see his wild eyes. Then there’s a tremendous explosion.
I duck my head and hug the nematode’s back. The shock of the blast almost flips our mount, but luckily for us giant worms have extremely low centers of gravity. We’re soon speeding away from the explosion. I look back and see that where the women and children stood, only a large, smoking crater remains.
What’s a Jasai? I ask the Gorm. A Dark Army killer?
Dannite. They’re a recent splinter group that appeared after the war against the Dark Army was lost. They want to force the end.
The end of what?
The human species. They revile humans.
But if they’re Dannite, they are human, I object.
Yes, Morgan agrees, they blame themselves for what’s happened to the earth. According to their fanatical founder, humans are abominations in the eyes of God, responsible for every wretched thing that’s happened to the once beautiful earth. Dann claimed that the planet could be saved and healed. Jasai preaches that Dann was wrong, and that humanity’s last duty is to remove its own foul presence.
So they’re a suicide cult?
An annihilation cult. They don’t want to just kill themselves. They want to take the entire human race with them. They believe that’s the only way to atone for the damage Homo sapiens
has wreaked.
I shiver, and almost slip off the worm’s back. Has it really come to this? The human race so appalled by its own conduct that it’s bent on exterminating itself?
The nematode gathers speed and we race through the darkness. The ruins fall away, and at the first light of dawn we come to what was once a marsh. The waters have long since dried up, and all that is left are the desiccated husks of reeds, and ghostly outlines of ancient water courses on gravel.
The nematode stops and we dismount.
What’s the matter? I ask. Is the dawn spooking it? Is it going to dig a burrow for us to hide in again?
It refuses to go any farther, Morgan informs me. And it also doesn’t want to stay here.
Why not?
Kill zone.
Offer it an egesta, I suggest.
Morgan takes a handful of egesta and holds them out in his palm.
The giant worm shuffles close, obviously hungry and tempted to accept a hearty breakfast. Then it reconsiders. The nozzlelike mouth twitches and shuts tight.
The nematode turns and begins to slither back the way it came, leaving Morgan and me all alone in the ruined earth’s most feared kill zone.
13
Morgan gives me a laser blaster from his rucksack, takes one for himself, and we set out across the wasteland. The stock of the large gun feels good in my hands, but it worries me that such a weapon is necessary.
What am I supposed to shoot? I ask him.
He doesn’t want to know.
I do. Forewarned is forearmed. What’s hunting us?
If the legends are true, there are swarms of mutant locusts, which emerge from the ground and eat everything they set upon, and then each other. And there are lizards as big as dinosaurs, which hide themselves in dunes and remain motionless for weeks until something eatable passes by. Worst of all are the hairy red desert goliath scorpions. Just one sting and all your blood turns to—
Okay, I cut him off. You’re right. I don’t want to know. What’s the good news?
The heat will kill us before the locusts or the lizards.
Unfortunately, Morgan wasn’t exaggerating. Soon we’re baking. Then we’re frying. And we start quarreling.
Morgan, I tell him, I can’t take much more of this.
Gorms don’t like to hear whining when they’re dying.
Allow me to point out that you whine constantly. It’s your distinguishing feature. Along with low self-esteem.
Morgan was doing fine, happy and safe in his hutch, till the mighty Prince of Dann came traipsing along.
I didn’t ask you to bring me here. This was your bright idea. Now what are we going to do to get out alive?
As Morgan’s mother used to say: Stop thinking! Shut your useless mind up and conserve energy.
No offense, but your mother sounds like a horror show.
Morgan wheels around, his gun aimed at my chest. Never say bad things about Morgan’s mother.
I point my own gun back at him: Don’t tell me not to think. One of us is going to have to find a way out of here, and I don’t think it’s going to be you, or your mother. And don’t point that gun at me. We both know you’ll never shoot.
Morgan raises the gun and fires. A blast of searing energy erupts from the muzzle and passes inches over my left shoulder.
I sense something and whirl around. Ten feet from us is a red hairy scorpion, with twelve eyes and a humongous stinger poised to strike. It’s as big as a tank, with a bright crimson carapace for body armor. Morgan’s laser blast bounces off its shell like sunlight from a car hood.
The pronged tail sweeps toward me and I somersault out of the way. Don’t let the telson touch him. His blood will congeal in two seconds.
The venom-dripping barb swings at my legs, and this time I vault over it. I don’t want my blood to congeal, I assure Morgan. I like it in liquid form. What can we do to kill it? Your lasers aren’t even giving it a headache.
Take out its eyes!
The scorpion must have heard that. It pivots like lightning on its eight legs, opens its hideous mouth, and sprays a cloud of acid at Morgan. The Gorm dives out of the way, dropping his black rucksack on a rock. The sack and the rock it lands on sizzle and melt in the acid bath.
I raise my gun and circle, looking for the monster’s eyes. There are plenty of them, as big as motorcycle headlights—I see a pair high up on its head, and five pairs lower down. I blast away, and they glow and explode.
Morgan also starts firing, and in seconds all twelve eyes are gone. The venomous arachnid rears up and hisses in agony and rage. Blind or not, it still senses exactly where we are. Every time I take a step, it scuttles to cut me off. I spot bristly hairs hanging from its abdomen—they must function as sensory organs. Morgan and I remain completely still as the scorpion probes the air for us.
Okay, we blinded it, I tell Morgan, but we still can’t move. How do we finish it off?
Sonic grenade, he says, taking one out of a back pocket. The problem is Morgan doesn’t throw very well, even when he’s calm. I see that his long arm is shaking with fear.
The good news is you have a relief pitcher from Hadley ready in the bull pen, I tell him. Toss me that grenade.
Once Morgan activates it, we’ll only have twelve seconds to get away. Are you ready?
As I’ll ever be.
Morgan flips a tiny switch. The sonic grenade starts to hum and glow. He tosses it to me. I won’t have any problem nailing the scorpion at close range. But as soon as we start running to escape the explosion, the scorpion will chase us. If we manage to escape the grenade’s blast, the scorpion will, too, and then it will chase us down.
Ten seconds! Nine. Throw it.
Don’t start running yet, I warn Morgan. I’ve got an idea. I slide-step to my left, dragging my foot. The scorpion instantly detects the movement and comes after me, opening its fearsome jaws to spit acid.
I jump high and fire the grenade into the monstrosity’s mouth and far down its throat. Run, I tell Morgan.
The Gorm is already sprinting away. I follow him.
The scorpion comes right after us. Our sudden takeoff opened up a little daylight, which the eight-legged giant immediately begins to close. I can hear its pincers scuttling over the crust, gaining ground.
It’s coming! Six seconds. Five. Run faster.
I was always a fast runner. Fastest in my school, in my town, in my county. I once gained three hundred and forty yards in a football game. I fly into full sprint.
Morgan pulls farther away from me on his short legs. I SAID RUN!
I am running! How did you get to be so fast?
As Morgan’s mother used to say: Fear all, flee fast, live long. Two seconds left. One. Down!
The Gorm dives headlong onto a dried-up streambed, and I follow him. As I slide, the scorching gravel burns my face and torches my chest through my protective suit.
The sonic grenade EXPLODES. It sounds like a bottled thunderclap. Gray-black dust rises like a shroud. I see the crimson carapace torn apart from the inside as pieces of legs, pincers twitching, fly by me.
I get up, and Morgan does, too. The dead scorpion is lying on its side, like an overturned brick house, some of its remaining legs still thrashing.
Well done, I tell Morgan, thrilled with our victory. Those things are nasty. How’d you like that sonic grenade fastball down the middle?
We lost our water, the Gorm replies miserably, ever the pragmatist. It was inside my rucksack. We can’t survive more than two hours without it.
Then let’s turn back.
Impossible. We’ve already come too far.
What does that leave?
Not much. Our only chance is to go forward. We have to find the stronghold of Dann before the sun kills us.
14
This is how it feels to die in a desert. At first you fear it, and then you just hope it will happen quickly.
We are walking over crust so dry and hot that it might as well be a bed of cinders. No
thing grows here, and nothing has for a long time. There are no weeds or bramble, no husks of reeds or tree stumps.
Was the Garden of Eden really here, thousands of years ago—a leafy glade between beautiful rivers with the tree of knowledge hanging with tempting fruit? As I trudge along, I can’t help feeling a tremendous sense of guilt at how we screwed it all up. I don’t know if I believe in the Eden myth, but in a sense the whole world I came from was like a lush garden, with clean skies and fish-filled oceans. And now there’s nothing left but gravel.
I am sweating and slowly roasting inside my protective suit, like a self-basting chicken. The sun is up, and even though my eyes are half slitted shut the glare is blinding me through my protective goggles. My boots are catching fire—I can smell burning rubber and see tiny plumes of smoke rising from the soles. Morgan, how can we possibly find the hidden fortress of Dann when we can’t keep our eyes open?
Morgan would like to be back in his hutch, eating his wurfle egesta and sipping his lemon tea. A cruddy life is better than a miserable death.
I can’t argue with you there, I tell him. Sorry I brought you to this fate.
Not his fault. Morgan made his own decisions, lousy as they were.
No, it is my fault. I do this to everybody I meet. At least it’s over. There’s a girl in Manhattan I wish I could say goodbye to, and a big dog somewhere in South America. I hope he’s eating for both of us . . .
Morgan suddenly stops walking and looks around.
What is it? I ask. Not one of those hidden dinosaurs?
He raises his laser blaster. Possibly . . .
The ground beneath his feet erupts as a concealed ninja, dressed in black with a birdlike mask, bursts upward from beneath the gravel and slices Morgan’s legs off at the knees with a laser scimitar.
Morgan shrieks and fires his gun but it’s hard to get off a good shot when your legs have just been hacked off.
For a second I’m stunned. Then the ninja swings his scimitar at me, and even though I’m weak and blinded by the glare, Eko’s training takes over. I dive-roll out of the way and shoot my gun at him as I’m upside down.