After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set

by Charlie Dalton

  Then what the hell made that noise?

  “The door,” Lucy said. “The pod door shut.”

  Worse than that, the clamps holding the pod in place released its grip with a hiss. The little pod was already beginning to slide along the rail. . . back in the direction of the City. Without them on it.

  Donny chased after it.

  “No!” he said. “No! Everybody! Get on! Jump on!”

  He stretched in an effort to grab the pod. The locals parted, letting him pass. Try as he might, Donny could find no purchase. There was simply nothing to hold onto, no ledge, no hook. Even if there was, how were they supposed to stay on board when it travelled as fast as it did?

  Haste had made Donny desperate. He wasn’t thinking clearly. The others were, which was why they hadn’t taken after the pod in the first place. And Jamie wasn’t about to let these people keep Fatty.

  Donny, realizing the failure of his efforts, slowed to a stop and watched as the pod, the little ball of light shrink, growing smaller and smaller, speeding up with each passing second. Into the eternal dark.

  70.

  DONNY DIDN’T turn around until the little pod had taken most of its light—and hope—with it. Any chance they’d had of returning to the City soon departed along with the pod. Donny turned and headed back to the aggressive circle of strangers. He ignored them as he solemnly joined the others.

  Donny knew more than the others about their location. He’d seen a map of the area once when a travelling salesman came to sell his wares. Donny had really wanted the map, to look at, ponder over, imagine the existence of other people in distant parts of the world. His father wouldn’t fork out for it and the salesman refused to reduce the price, so Donny took matters into his own hands.

  He visited the seller every day he was in the commune. They sparked up a good relationship, the young Donny always fascinated by the man’s tales of adventure. He felt certain that, come the day of the salesman’s departure, he would bestow the map on Donny as a parting gift. A sign of friendship. He did no such thing and headed into the sunset with his wares on his back, never to be seen again. Donny’s only consolation was that he had a good memory, and had spent so much time pouring over the maps that he had already memorized a great deal of it.

  He knew how far Denver was from Las Vegas. Dr. Beck had said they’d completed approximately half the tunnel, located beneath their City. Donny could therefore make a pretty good guess of the distance. And, although he didn’t like to admit it, Jamie was right. It was just too far for them to travel on foot.

  “You think we should go with these people?” he said.

  “Not if we can avoid it,” Jamie said.

  “Then avoid it we shall,” Donny said, reaching for his rifle.

  He grunted and jerked forward. He put an unsteady hand to the back of his head. His fingertips came away red. He turned around. Caught one of the strangers by the eye.

  “You sorry son of a—” he managed before his eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the floor.

  “Come quietly,” the Speaker said. “Or come like him.”

  Several of the locals were already swinging their slings above their heads. Ready to release at a moment’s notice. Even if Jamie could reach his gun before they released he couldn’t hope to kill them all before one of their rocks knocked him unconscious too. And did he really want to massacre an entire village?

  Jamie held up his hands. The locals closed on them, taking their weapons. The pod raced away, now no longer even a single point of light. It winked out, leaving them in total darkness.

  “You have made a wise decision,” the Speaker said.

  Had he? Jamie thought. Or had he taken the coward’s way out?

  71.

  IN THE shadow of the mountain that housed the City where Jamie and the others had made their stand against the Rages, was an area of the salt flats that had been unspoilt for centuries before Donny came along with his sports car.

  He’d overturned the salt and left black tyre marks with wicked spinning rubber wheels. Invisible to the naked eye perched atop the mountain—which was just as well, as currently there were no eyes, naked or otherwise, upon the mountaintop—was an object discarded by the heavy-footed Donny.

  A small black box of incredible power lay on the salt flat’s surface.

  A Rage wearing dungarees, hampered by the fact it had only one leg, hopped across the desert. While the other Rages had been distracted by the obvious pulse in the distance, somewhere near the giant mound of dirt, this Rage had heard a roaring sound from this direction.

  It was true Rages were primarily attracted by the loudest, biggest thing in any given area however, there was another, lesser-known attribute that guided their senses, equally true, equally valid. Rages were also attracted by the most recent distraction. A Rage’s mind was not a complex thing. Its senses had to balance between these two objective variants, and it was often fifty-fifty as to which direction it would head in.

  And so now, as the creature reached the spot where the roaring had taken place—and having no concept of predicting where the noise might move in the future—the creature peered around, listening, and more importantly, sniffing.

  There was no sign of the usual delightful stench of a living thing, its pores opening up and exuding a scent quite irresistible to any Rage. There was no such thing here. Just the dull dry wind that blew, forming tiny vortexes of salt and dust. Nature was bored, playing with itself.

  Then it saw something; something so obvious that even a Rage could see it. A black box on the white desert floor. It had an acrid, unnatural smell about it. The Rage had never smelled anything like it before, and a Rage was nothing if not accidentally curious.

  With nothing else to eat, the creature in dungarees got down on all fours and bit into it. It was hard. He broke a couple of teeth. He gnawed at it, making small indentations along the corners. The Rage was about ready to give up on it when it heard a noise.

  Would this be the delicious meatsack he had heard before? No. It was another Rage. And it was coming for the black box. His black box.

  The hopping Rage would not let him have it. He’d always been late to the party with his single leg, never getting more than scraps to live off. But not this time. This time, he would get the lion’s share. He would be the king at this feast.

  He shifted his jaws to force the box deeper, a snapping sound as the fulcrum of his jaw gave way and shoved the black box down his throat. It wouldn’t go down. Couldn’t swallow. It stayed there, lodged in his throat like a bird who’d had too much to eat. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like a Rage could choke to death.

  Rages felt no satisfaction, no sense of victory. But right then, as the other Rage stumbled around the area, attempting to identify what had brought the first Rage there in the first place, the dungarees-wearing former mechanic would have felt both those things.

  72.

  JAMIE COULDN’T identify any shade variation in the darkness of the tunnel, but the strangers evidently could. Jamie attempted to mimic the soft scuffling footsteps of the locals in their polished black shoes. Despite taking the tiny steps, he caught his toe on every protruding rock and miniature rise he came across. The only sense of victory he felt was hearing Fatty falling over more often than he himself did. But the margin was by no means large.

  The strangers must have carried Donny, not that Jamie could see them doing it. Poor Donny. He’d have a second large lump on his head to match the first. Jamie would make sure he was okay before laughing openly at him.

  His brother’s body was soft, relaxed and floppy like he had no bones.

  “Stop,” someone whispered at Jamie’s side.

  They’d come to something solid, Jamie realized. It was beyond Jamie’s ability to see what. Then, a shaft of light, dull but distinct enough to cut a rectangle in the darkness, forming a doorway. The locals filed through it. Jamie followed them, stepping into a new world. An old world.

  It reminded Jamie
of the storybooks he’d read as a kid, of medieval English towns and hamlets, small and out of the way, beyond the clutching reach of large cities. A time and place where the laws of the land applied by local opinion more than administered by national courthouses.

  Lamps burned on tall classic lampposts, small orbs of light in endless darkness. The buildings were small picturesque houses with pointed tiled rooves with narrow dirt roads winding between them. One house had a little wheel turned by a man-made stream. Inside the house would be an arm attached to a wheel-shaped weight that ran in a circle, grinding wheat, turning it into flour. It was a process Jamie knew very well because they had a similar setup at their commune.

  Just thinking about home brought a thick wad to the back of Jamie’s throat. This place, despite its diverging appearance, was very similar to Mountain’s Peak. There was a togetherness about it, with how they teamed up to survive and exist in a world that did not want them. It was this element that had been missing from the sterile environment of the City.

  A woman beat an old carpet. Clouds of cloying dust billowed. A man with mutton chops hacked at vegetables and deposited them in a bowl of water. A pair of boys played tag, dashing under hand-drawn carts and drying sheets.

  Half the escorting group broke off to resume jobs they were doing before being interrupted by Jamie and his gang. The other half—including three men who carried Donny’s body to a large cage. It had bars around each side and roof. Made of some kind of wood, what looked like bamboo. They deposited Donny inside, placing him gently on the clean floor.

  “Please enter,” the Speaker said.

  Jamie didn’t much like the idea of entering the prison so easily. After all, when would they let them out?

  “You said we were going to speak with your leader,” Jamie said.

  “Please enter,” the Speaker repeated.

  This was going nowhere. He squared off against the Speaker.

  “I really need to speak with your leader,” he said. “We’re of no danger to you. We’ve done nothing wrong. We want to leave.”

  “The leader will speak with you when he has time,” the Speaker said. “Please enter.”

  You couldn’t argue with good manners, Jamie supposed. The strangers stood with weapons hanging purposefully at their waists. Ready to use in an instant, but not openly threatening.

  Jamie stepped into the cage, followed by Lucy and Fatty.

  The locals shut the door behind them and wove a padlock around a bunch of thick chains. Jamie gauged their expressions. He was relieved to find they didn’t laugh or sneer or suddenly change character. They turned and left their new prisoners to their own devices.

  Fatty moved to Donny’s side and knelt beside him.

  “How’s he doing?” Jamie said.

  “He’s fine so far as I can tell,” Fatty said. “Breathing. Heartbeat. The works.”

  “Make him as comfortable as you can,” Jamie said.

  “What are you going to do?” Fatty said.

  “Figure a way out of here,” Jamie said.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Fatty said. “We don’t want to upset them. They might let us out soon anyway.”

  Fatty was always an advocate of the status quo, never one to fight or put up much resistance. Jamie ignored his friend and focused on their cage.

  It was simply made. He eyed the roof and each corner, looking for the join and how it was put together. It hadn’t been lashed together with chains and locks the same way the door was. Probably nails. Maybe they could snap the nails, push the lid off and figure a way out of there. They would need to do it when the rest of the village was asleep. He assumed they would artificially re-create night.

  Jamie was exhausted. It’d been a long day. His thoughts were fuzzy, his mind sluggish. He took a seat and relaxed. Lucy sat beside him. Fatty was still putting Donny in a comfortable position. He’d taken off his own jacket to roll into a pillow and placed it under Donny’s head, lifted his knees and put them to one side for comfort. Fatty might be incredibly lazy when operating under his own steam, but he was excellent at following orders.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jamie said.

  “Sure,” Lucy said. “What is it?”

  Lucy looked as if she’d been expecting this for a while. And dreading it.

  “In the basement of the City, when me and Fatty were looking out for the Rage, how did you warn us it was behind us over the speaker system? As far as I know, there aren’t any microphones in there.”

  “Right,” Lucy said. “None.”

  “Then how did you do it?” Jamie said.

  Lucy looked everywhere but at him. It was clearly an uncomfortable subject for her.

  “I plugged myself into the computer system,” Lucy said.

  Jamie blinked, surprised at her honesty. He knew she must have been capable of something like that, or else she would never have been created in the first place. Still, it was a surprise to hear her say the words out loud.

  “What did it feel like?” Jamie said.

  Lucy shrugged. Then her eyebrows pinched the bridge of her nose in thought.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “It’s. . . sort of like when you relax and let your mind drift off and random thoughts suddenly pop into your head. You become part of something bigger than yourself. Much bigger. Once I was inside, I could control everything, if I wanted.”

  “It must feel amazing to have that kind of control,” Jamie said.

  Lucy shrugged. It was all the confirmation he needed.

  “My dad told me about something before,” Jamie said. “We never had much stuff at the commune, so Dad always got us to do things you didn’t need much for. One thing he talked about was meditation. That’s where you relax your mind and let your unconscious take over. It sounds similar to what you’re talking about.”

  “Right,” Lucy said. “Something like that. But that was with computers. It’s not really of much use in here. Not many places even have computers anymore. Or electricity for that matter.”

  “Shame the world destroyed itself and there are no more machines,” Jamie said.

  Lucy nodded. She glanced at Jamie, then away again.

  “I checked on your dad while I was inside the system,” she said.

  Jamie’s ears pricked up.

  “How was he?” he said.

  “Relaxed, at peace,” Lucy said. “I’m no expert with medicine but everything appeared to be the way it should. Stable. He’s going to be all right.”

  Jamie looked at his fingers. “You can’t know that.”

  “No,” Lucy said. “But I sensed it.”

  “I hope for the best too,” Jamie said.

  He was resigned to his father’s death, Lucy realized. He had no hope left. She could understand why. The truth was, Lucy didn’t only hope he would get better, she knew he would. How could she explain it to Jamie without sounding like even more of a freak? There was a strength inside Donald, something that hadn’t been there before. . .

  She decided to play it safe and keep quiet. She couldn’t adequately explain it to herself, so how was she going to explain it to someone else? How did you convince someone to believe something you had no evidence for?

  Jamie was her friend, and it was about his father. Perhaps a shot of hope was what he needed right about now. Spurred on by a vein of courage, she opened her mouth to speak. She turned to Jamie and found him with his chin on his chest, head lolling to one side. Asleep.

  It would have to wait. In truth, she was relieved.

  73.

  JAMIE STARTED awake. He couldn’t breathe. He was lying face-down on the dirty concrete floor. He immediately turned his head to the side and gasped a deep lungful of nourishing oxygen. A couple more cleansing breaths and he rolled over, preparing to sleep once more.

  The cold hard floor reminded him he was no longer in his soft warm bed at the commune. His dream was ruined with the knowledge he was Somewhere Else. He grunted and pushed himself up into a sit
ting position.

  No longer sleeping yet still not awake. He peered at his surroundings. It no longer surprised him he was in a small room with a bunch of other people. Now it would have seemed strange if there weren’t other people residing with him. He wondered how he hadn’t suffered from loneliness before.

  Lucy lay leaning against him, huge eyes shut tight and fast asleep. Breathing lightly with no snoring. Across the way, Donny was still unconscious, body braced in the position Fatty had folded him. Fatty sat with his legs tucked in, back to the bars.

  Jamie moved slowly. He got up and gently put Lucy down so she wouldn’t be disturbed by his movements. She lay her hands on the cold floor and used them as a pillow. Amazing what you could put up with when you were exhausted.

  They were still contained within their mysterious underground cell, the earthy walls of the tunnel rising to form a dome overhead. The lamps outside continued burning their haunting yellow orbs. None in the windows, shut tight. If they wanted to escape, now was the time—whatever time that was. Impossible to tell without the Sun’s arc across the sky.

  The gang were entirely unprepared for such an undertaking. They had no weapons, no plan. They didn’t even know where the exit was. Still, they needed to try. These people had locked them up for committing no crime and there was no reason to think they would let them out anytime soon.

  Jamie recounted his appraisal of their prison, of how strong and sturdy it was. The chains and parent lock were still present on the door. The upper corners weren’t as strongly built as he’d thought.

  He looked for imperfections, weaknesses, errors in construction. He compared one to another, forming a winner-stays-on style analysis. Two elbows were spotless, without a single mark. The strongest, he decided. Other prisoners would have been locked up in the past. They’d have possessed the same dreams of escape. Most had clearly acted on those impulses.