Tomorrow's Alternatives

by Roger Elwood

  Harold started to protest, but Karen pulled on his arm. “Let’s get away from here,” she whispered. “I don’t trust them.”

  One of the children behind the barrier threw a rock and, as if on signal, the others started hurling sticks and stones.

  Harold, cursing under his breath, wheeled around and hobbled away as fast as he could. Karen pulled Tommy and scrambled after him.

  Out of range, Harold stopped and looked back. He shook his fist at Martin’s figure silhouetted against the sky. “You bastards. You dirty bastards,” he yelled.

  Tommy wailed. “Mommy, Mommy.”

  Harold turned on the child and slapped him across the mouth. “Shut up,” he snarled. Karen picked the baby up and tried to comfort him. Harold glared at her and limped off down the street.

  They found an old apartment building on West Seventy-fifth Street, with a second floor almost intact, and moved in. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling but the walls hid them from the street and the narrow staircase was easy to protect. Best of all, they found a cache of rags; there were enough to furnish some protection against the winter ahead.

  Through October and November Harold managed to kill an occasional small rodent and Karen supplemented the food supply with cleaned and peeled insects. The white inner bodies were edible though tasteless. Tommy cried a lot and Harold grew more irritable as his leg stayed swollen.

  As the weather grew colder and the food harder to find, Karen began to fear for their safety. Occasionally groups of hunters passed their home. With the advent of winter human flesh became the staple protein supply of many local tribes.

  “Shut him up before I smash his head.” Harold’s patience wore thinner every day.

  “He can’t help it. He’s only a baby, and he’s hungry.”

  “I don’t give a damn. I’m hungry, too. Why do I have to feed that useless little bastard anyway? Shut him up!”

  Karen held little Tommy’s head in her bands. “Please don’t cry,” she said. “We’ll have lots of food soon. When Daddy is well. Please.”

  “I’m hungry, I wanna eat,” wailed Tommy.

  In December, the food supply fell off to near zero. The rodents had dug in and there was no finding them. Insects made up the family’s food. Harold sat, day after

  day, brooding over his stiff leg. He would lean on his axe, glaring at Karen and the baby. All three were now walking skeletons. Harold s stomach had melted away and his ribs washboarded his sides. Their skins broke out and cracked from cold and lack of food.

  The December moon shone in through the ceiling. A thin veil of snow drifted through the hole to settle in one corner. Something rattled in the still night air. Karen’s eyes snapped open. Harold was sitting up, “Hand me the axe. Quickly!” he whispered. “Keep the kid quiet.” Karen crept over to the sleeping child and put her hand over his mouth. Harold moved painfully to the head of the stairs. He could see nothing but he thought he heard a movement in the dark. He stood, frozen still, trying to force his hearing to reach out like antenna. There was no more sound. After a few minutes he signaled Karen to his side. “I heard someone down there. I’m sure of it,” he whispered. “I’m going to try to get down quietly. Keep Tommy from crying. If I don’t get back you’re on your own.”

  “Please don’t leave us. Wait till morning.”

  “No chance. I’m going down now. It might be meat.” Harold inched his way down the stairs, stopping to listen on each tread. “Damn,” he thought. “If it was a rat, it was a big one and he’s gone.”

  At the bottom, he moved carefully past the booby trap warnings he had set up for intruders. The winter moon cast black shadows on the street level. The light snow and the moonlight made the street luminescent. Harold stopped still. His bare foot had stepped in a patch of wet snow. Something had been there! He slid forward, feet feeling for the wet tracks. “Here it is.” He had stumbled on something. He shifted the axe, ready to strike at any movement. Nothing! He reached out to feel the obstacle. It was a human body. No heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing, it was dead but still warm. He dropped his axe and, grabbing the body under the arms, he dragged it to the stairs.

  “Karen,” he called. “Come here quick.”

  “What is it?”

  “We’ve got some meat for the winter.”

  Karen came down the stairs quickly. “Oh, no,” she said. “I can’t do it. I can’t eat human flesh.”

  “You’ll eat it all right. You’ll eat it or you’ll starve. C’mon, help me get it upstairs.”

  Between the two, they shuffled the carcass up the stairs. By the shaft of moonlight in the corner they saw the emaciated body of an old man. “Probably thrown out of a local tribe ’cause he couldn’t carry his load. Our good luck,” said Harold.

  In the morning he split the carcass and butchered it into usable sections. His spirits were up for the first time in two months. He cooked and he and Tommy eagerly devoured the tough, stringy steaks while Karen held back and cried.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t,” she said as she ate an insect stew.

  Harold spent the morning curing the excess meat and laying out parts in the snow to keep fresh. He sang as he worked; even Tommy seemed happier now that his stomach was full.

  For the next meal, Harold roasted a leg on a spit. The smell of cooking meat and the sizzle of fat was too much for Karen. She timidly reached out and tried a small piece. Her husband and the baby were wallowing in grease and meat juice, laughing as they ate. The meat was tough but it tasted better than the finest rat meat in the world. Karen ate faster and faster, fat dribbling down her chin. Soon all three were laughing wildly and smearing each other with grease.

  The food lasted till February. Harold, Karen, and Tommy spent most of their time huddled together for warmth; their clothing barely kept them from freezing. They had filled out a little, but now, the hunger was even harder to take. The cold outside melted the flesh from their bones; their lips cracked, their eyes became dull, and their skins broke out in sores. Harold went out to hunt less often; his leg had swollen again, making it hard for him to use the stairs. Karen scoured the wrecked buildings for bugs; even they were hard to find. Harold took to sitting hunched over his axe, glaring at Karen and the child. It became more and more difficult to do even the minimum daily tasks.

  “Were all going to die.” Harold’s eyes were fixed sightlessly on the wall and his voice trailed off to a whisper.

  “Don’t talk like that. We’ll make it, I know we will.” Karen tried to comfort him.

  “We can’t all make it. We were lucky before. It won’t happen again. This is the worst winter in years; the camps will be using their old people themselves. I don’t want to die.” His head snapped up and his voice rose to a shout. “I don’t want to die. I don’t have to die. I can make it.”

  “Harold, stop it. We’ll be O.K. I’ll go out and find us something to eat. Don’t you worry.” Karen smiled through cracked lips. “I feel lucky today. Just you sit quiet till I come back. I have a feeling we’ll have something to eat.”

  Karen bundled Tommy into a comer, making him as warm as she could. “Take care of Daddy,” she said.

  She went downstairs slowly; weak as she was, movement was painful. “God,” she thought. “What can I do?”

  The streets were covered with snow. It lay clean and white, scalloped into ornamental ridges by the biting winds. There was no sign of life. She moved listlessly, from building to building, searching the broken foundations. There was nothing to be found. She turned over rock after rock to find only frozen earth.

  Eventually she gave up and stiffly worked her way back home.

  At the top of the stairs she paused for a moment. A wave of depression swept over her as she took in the scene in the room. Harold was asleep in one comer, his shrunken body propped up against the wall. The extra rags she had used to keep Tommy warm were wrapped around Harold’s swollen leg.

  Across from him Tommy sat with his knees drawn up

  to hi
s stomach, his arms wrapped around his naked legs for warmth. His nude body was blue with cold, his face wet with tears.

  Karen moved quietly to Tommy’s side. She wiped his face carefully and whispered, "Quiet, honey. Don’t make a sound.” She went to the axe leaning against the wall.

  After she finished with Harold she went back to the baby and wrapped him warmly in the now bloodstained rags. She wiped his tear streaked face. "Don’t cry, dear. You’ll have your dinner soon. Mommy loves ya,” she said.

  Peritonitis

  GENE WOLFE

  Now this is the story Greylock told before the Men of the Neck were scattered forever, before the great exodus and the wandering in the cold lands of hunger. Once (so said Greylock, my father's mother heard him) the Men of the Neck ruled all the World and were all the world, and there was nothing between Heel and Finger-tip that was not theirs. In those times a virgin might dine at the Calf and drink at the Eyes and sleep where she would and none would harm her. Then every man said “Brother” or “Sister” when he met a child, and the old were respected. How many were born in those times, and lived each moment of life in those times, and dying rolled away, and never dreamed that the World would not be thus forever? Who can say? Their spirits have gone to the Hair. The dark followed the light for them, and the wettings came and some perished; but this, as all knew, was good lest the People wax too great.

  I myself was born into lesser times, but even so not until even those lesser days were nearly ended. I tell you this that you may remember, and know in your despair that God has in times past been good. All is his, all belongs to him alone. Never in the coming time shall you say among yourselves that he has robbed you—what he takes is his; it cannot be otherwise.

  No man can now comprehend the joy of those times. There was no bad food anywhere; every morsel was filled with strength, and a happiness indescribable. When the old—yes, even as I am now—ate of that meat their backs straightened and their eyes grew bright; then the grand-sire of a thousand might take the goodwife beneath the shade of some soft roof.

  And the children of those first times ate, and eating danced in the light, and sang songs that came to them as they sang, one word following another, and played a score of merry games now forgotten, games that grandmothers only mumbled of, forgetting both the names and the rules, even when I myself was but a child; games of running, jumping, hiding and finding, games of hopping, climbing, and singing; games of holding hands in chains.

  Again I say, none now can know the joy of those times, and the greatest of them was this—that every man and woman saw, as light came and dark, then light again, and time grew heavy upon them, that that World that was their children’s children’s waxed.

  You do not believe me. Ah, there is no blame in that to you. How could you, who have seen it wane all your lives, yes, and heard your fathers say that it has waned all theirs? But it was true—larger it grew and fairer, the warmth increasing. Then those we call still the New Mountains first began to grow, lifting, very gently then, their slopes above the level plain.

  At that time there came a change to the nature of the meat, and none (so have I heard) could well prove whether it was for good or ill—nor can I now say. Happiness it brought indeed, but in that happiness there were a thousand sorrows; yet it was said by many, weeping, that it was a sweeter joy. Then the eaters sang not, but chanted, making of the old, mouth-smoothed words new and unfamiliar things, chants that brought happiness or tears or terror even to those who fasted. And this was called the second age, and it was the time of counterpoint and dreams.

  That time too passed. Of the third age what is there to say? You have heard its story already too often. The New Mountains were mighty then, and there came upon all who ate a fever of clean lust that wiped away everything that had gone before. It was then—so I deem it—that the oneness of the People was broken, never in truth to come again. For by twos and threes and fives all but the youngest children drew apart, and those that returned to the gatherings stayed but a little time. At that time if at any the love-promisings that are older than the People were kept: for many a pair dallied all a dark away, and a light too, feasting enough to have fattened a dozen save that love kept them lean.

  With the age of New Food that time ended. From the summit of each New Mountain, grown now until they rivaled the Haunches, there broke forth a spring; and the waters of those springs were not clear as the waters of the Eyes are, but white, and sweet. Many a one climbed the New Mountains then to taste of them, though they ..flowed less than a lifetime. This was the fourth age, and the end of the beginning. For when those springs died the New Mountains waned; and the Belly, which had, scarcely noted, waxed above the Loins, withered in one dark.

  Then many felt their doom upon them; this feeling was in the meat, so it was said—but in the air as well. The World was smaller. Then came the Sundering. Some said there was no God; and we, the Men of the Neck, drove them for their blasphemy beyond the New Mountains toward the Loins. Others said that the World itself was God; and these, a fierce and a terrible people, climbed to the Face. Then did we name ourselves Men of the Neck, but beyond our boasting we feared—for though the Men of the Loins might drink there of impure waters, we must needs reach the Eyes when we could eat no more without drinking, and we feared that those above us would prevent us. A few, brave and fleet, ventured first, daring the Spirit Forests to come to the lakes from the north, and returning by the same troubled path. But return they did, and others after them, until we came in time to know that those whom we feared had left all the lands of light to dwell in the Mouth, where—they said—the waters at times possessed a quality magical and ineffable. They spoke of the third age, and the second and the first—all these, they said, had returned not in the meat, but in the waters of the Mouth. With these avowals they taunted us, flinging at us jagged stones fallen from the Teeth. But we saw that, however fierce, they were few; and when we questioned them, shouting from a distance, they would not reply.

  It was at this time that Deepdelver’s woman Singing was stolen by a Man of the Face, and into those times I was born—yes, I saw them, with these same eyes that behold you now, remembering them in the time I was a child.

  Deepdelver was not stronger than other men, nor swifter; and others there were who were cleverer than he. Why then was he counted a hero when they were not? This was the question I put to my parents; and the answer they gave was that he had done a wonderful thing, going to Everdark to bring back the woman he loved; but that reply was no answer—would any other, stronger, swifter, more cunning, not have done as Deepdelver had? No. There was in him something better than strength or cunning, that which made him go forward and not back. This it was that made Deepdelver a hero, that brought him into Everdark, and to the light again alive.

  As to Singing, what can an old man say? Her beauty cursed me, if you will, though I was then but a little child. I have never seen another and never shall—she ennobled us all; wherever she stood was for that time a place of peace and beauty. Of the crime that befell her I was then too young to know, but I give it as I received it.

  With others of her age and a guard of men, of whom Deepdelver, then called by another, lesser, name, was one, she journeyed to the Eyes to bathe. Now at that time men no longer went into the haunted Hair to reach the lakes from the north. But not yet were they so bold as to come too near the comers of the Mouth—no, the accepted path, then deemed safe, was to skirt the southernmost spinney of the Hair, near the Ear, and thence to climb to the Eyes by an oblique ascent.

  Now this party of young men and maidens were so doing when there came upon them such a calamity as we, of this latter age, have so much more knowledge than they. An overflow from the nearer lake, forming itself into a great mass of water, came hurtling down on them; and they scattered—none looking to the others, but each fleeing in that direction that seemed to him easiest. Now it so happened that Singing's path led her to the Mouth.

  When the Tear had passed the
young men and maids joined again, laughing and each telling their tale of escape until, as they reckoned their numbers, their laughter hushed. Wide they quested then for Singing, but not to the Mouth until with the passing of time it grew upon them that if Singing had not, indeed, been washed away, then it was there that they must search for her. None spoke this knowledge, but it waxed among them; and at length they would not look at one another for the shame of it—but already Deepdelver was gone.

  No one had he told of his plan, going alone to the very precipices of the Lips, and from those dark, ill-omened heights, staring, alone, at the Teeth themselves, the dread portals of the sunless realm, found within him the strength to enter there; such a man is not like us, though he walk among us; the ghosts who wander forever through the Hair might, if they saw a living man walking unafraid where they are accustomed to take such ease as is permitted the Dead, believe him to be a ghost even as they: but—if we are not all specters now—it would not be so, because he would have life in him. Just so such men as you and I, seeing a Deepdelver, think him but our peer.

  Often I questioned him—young as I was, and shameless—of what he found within the Teeth, and the rescue of Singing. Little would he tell me. There are watery caves beneath the Tongue, by his saying. There he swam in halflight through waves clearer, yet thicker, than those of the lakes; and met a gentle race who begged him to go no farther, offering in the stead of Singing milk-pale maidens, languid, gentle, and enamoured of love, whom he spurned.

  We call ourselves the People of the Neck, but who but Deepdelver ever knew the extent of that kingdom; who but he ever, in the long song of history, went down the Throat? That road he took, leaving the last of the light. Savages he met there, and, defeating their chief in solitary combat, bound him when his vassals fled—till hunger forced from him the tale of Singing's passing, and her captor's. Deeper they had gone by his telling, and even Deepdelver's mighty strength—so he himself recounted it —died within him.