by Megan Hart
“Where did you get this?” His eyes greedily sucked in the sight of Tobin’s belongings.
“From a store.”
Asaph turned his head and spat. “Liar! All the stores have been rooted clean since before my father’s father’s day. You must’ve stolen it.”
“I didn’t!” Without bothering to ask permission, Tobin began repacking his bags. “I told you, I got it from a store. A big one. I found it on my way here from Eastport. It was filled with stuff like this.”
He found himself again with the knife at his throat. He froze, more afraid a slice would come from the shaking of Asaph’s hands than a deliberate jab. The old man was sweating, the froth on his lips dried to an unattractive crust. He stank.
“You said you were from the Bronx! Up by the stadium! There’s nothing left up there but beggars and thieves!”
“I didn’t say --” But Asaph wouldn’t let Tobin protest that he hadn’t claimed to be from the Bronx at all.
“You stole this from the Tribe! All of this! It’s the only place you could’ve gotten it! You’re a gonif, a thief! Thief!”
Swiftly, because he was tired of being held at knifepoint and tired of being accused of things he hadn’t done, Tobin reached up and grabbed Asaph’s wrist. The knife clattered to the ground. Tobin pushed the old man away, careful not to break the old bones but forcefully enough that Asaph landed on his rear.
“I’m not a liar, and I’m not a thief,” Tobin said, his voice low and painful in his throat. “And I’m not from the Bronx. I’m from Eastport. It’s in Maine. I don’t know who or what the Tribe is, and I don’t really care. I’ve been traveling for more than three weeks. I am on my way to California.”
He sat back, watching Asaph warily. The old man made no move toward him, instead just held his wrist and grimaced. Tobin continued to repack his bags.
“I don’t have any truck with fighting you, old man,” Tobin said, though not disrespectfully. Old Pa had always told him that a man is measured by how he treated those weaker than he is. Tobin was pretty sure that included Asaph. And if that was the sort of people populating this city, he could do without the company. “I just want to be on my way.”
Asaph said nothing, even when Tobin stood and hefted his bags, preparing to leave. Tobin watched him for a moment, but the old man didn’t move. Tobin stepped over him, watching for any movement that meant Asaph was going to attack him again, but there was none. He left the storeroom, climbed around the empty glass case, and began packing up his bike.
He expected to hear the old man coming after him at any moment, but again was wrong. Tobin thought about checking on him, but decided he hadn’t pushed him hard enough to cause permanent damage. Let the old guy go back to whatever it was he’d been doing before Tobin had been unlucky enough to make his acquaintance. He just wanted to get out of here.
It was still dark outside. He wasn’t afraid of the night. In Eastport, they’d all gone to bed with the dark. Lantern light was precious and reserved for emergencies.
No, he wasn’t afraid of the dark, but he was afraid. Meeting Asaph proved that the city was not as empty as it seemed. If the other residents were anything like the old man, Tobin didn’t want to meet up with them in the dark.
He’d have to walk his bike and use the flashlight. If he were lucky, he might find another empty store to camp out in, but he’d get no more sleep this night. In the morning he could be on his way, and forget about this cursed place. It didn’t matter what the peddler said. He’d find other people. He didn’t need companions like Asaph.
Tobin pulled his flashlight from the backpack and switched it on. It threw only enough light to illuminate the street a few feet around him, but it was enough that he could see where he was going. It also might make him an easy target for anyone hiding in any of the empty buildings. He didn’t like that at all, but didn’t see any help for it. He squared his shoulders and started walking.
Tobin had hardly gone ten feet when he heard a rustling and a crashing from the store he’d just left. He turned to see Asaph standing in the doorway. The shadows from the flashlight made his grin seem to dance on his face.
“The Tribe doesn’t like thieves!” Asaph’s quavery old man’s voice echoed through the dark street and sounded more distorted than it was. “Ride fast on that bike!”
Tobin didn’t bother replying. Instead he turned back and kept walking. The flashlight bobbed with every step and he gritted his teeth to keep from running like Asaph said he should. He wouldn’t show fear. If there were any eyes watching him from the dark, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
One foot in front of the other. Step by step. His neck began to ache from straining against whipping around at every small sound. His throat hurt, and when he touched it his fingers came away tinged with pink. Asaph must have sliced him a little, after all.
He stopped and pulled the map he’d torn from the book out of his pocket. He’d marked his route carefully with a bright pink pen, but the markings stopped once entering the city. He didn’t have many plans from here. The peddler had said he’d find people in the city. He hadn’t said where.
“Or that they’d be crazy,” Tobin muttered. Something metal clanged in an alley to his right, but when he shone the light in that direction, he could see nothing.
The buildings, so immense and intimidating by day, were even more hulking by night. If there was one advantage to the dark, it was that he couldn’t really see their true bulk. His world had shrunk to a ten-foot circle of light.
He kept walking, if for no other reason than he didn’t know what else to do. He was heading further south, into the heart of the city instead of away from it, but he didn’t want to backtrack. He’d just plow ahead, follow the streets until he reached something he could find on the map, and go from there.
His eyes were grainy from exhaustion, and his muscles ached and pulled. He concentrated on walking. Step by step. Push the bike. Think about getting out of here alive.
Another clang of metal. This one sounded deliberate. Tobin shone the light, holding it up over his head to make the thin beams stretch as far as they would. He saw nothing, but now every nerve in his body strained to hear or see something.
Tobin realized he’d tensed, as if for flight. Stupid, he told himself, still searching with the flashlight. Stupid to run when you don’t know where you’re going. That’s a good way to get into a trap, or get killed. He’d have to fight, should it come to that, and hope he wouldn’t be too badly outnumbered.
“James Bond could do it,” he said out loud. Despite the situation, he found a smile. “Hey! Watch out! James Bond is here!”
His voice echoed through the streets and bounced off the empty buildings, making it sound like ten people yelling. When the echoes died away, he thought he heard another sound. A low, steady murmuring whisper. Like people talking, but so low he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He didn’t want to run, and if he had to fight, he didn’t want to wait. He’d never actually fought, or even hit, another human being before. He’d read plenty of books about sword fights, and fist fights, and wars with guns and tanks and missiles, but when it came to actual experience in hand to hand combat…he had none. No one had ever hit him, not even when he was small and naughty enough to merit a spanking.
“Hey!” He yelled again, recklessly.
If it was going to happen, bring it on, he thought grimly. His ears rang, and his palms moistened. He felt like he was about to jump right out of his skin, but he also felt gloriously alive. He pushed down the bike’s kickstand and shrugged off the backpack in one smooth motion that made him feel like James Bond.
“If you’re out there, show yourself!” Tobin yelled to the blackness stretching out all around him. “I’m right here! Come and get me, if you’re going to!”
Another clang of metal on stone, this time above him. His head snapped up, eyes searching and finding nothing. The light was making him a target. He switched it off, evening his
chances. In the few moments it took his eyes to adjust to the dark, an unrelenting panic swelled in him. It constricted his throat and churned his stomach.
He couldn’t see. Anything could be out there, waiting, and he wouldn’t know about it. It was like when he’d been afraid of something lying in wait for him under the bed. Worse, though, was that now he was certain there were monsters in the dark. They might wear human faces, but beneath that they were full of fangs and scales and claws.
Bit by bit, however, he began to make out differences in the shadows. The buildings blocked most of what moonlight filtered through spring storm clouds, but it was enough for him. Tobin had spent enough dark nights making his way to the outhouse without benefit of a lantern that even the small amount of moonlight helped.
The murmuring whisper came again, a little louder and a little more clear. He could make out two, no, three voices but not what they were saying. What he could not discern was from where the voices came.
“Hey!” He was nearly sick with anticipation. His hands actually shook, clenched into fists so tight his nails cut his palms. If something didn’t happen soon, he thought he might just go crazy. “I know you’re out there! I can hear you!”
Men dropped like spiders from the sky. Three, four, five of them landed on the pavement in a circle around him, cutting off any chance at escape. They landed lightly, with almost no sound.
Tobin forced himself to breathe. He spread his legs a bit wider and held out his hands. “Who are you?”
The men said nothing, but didn’t advance on him. At least, he thought they were men. They had the shapes and limbs of men, but they wore black from head to foot. He couldn’t see their faces. If his eyes hadn’t adjusted so quickly, he’d only have been able to see them as shadows.
“Don’t come any closer!” He yelled, though they hadn’t moved.
They all looked at each other. He noticed with some sense of wonder that they wore thick belts around their waists with straps that looped around their legs. Attached to the belts were pouches and loops. He saw some tools. Strangest of all, attached to every belt was a long rope which didn’t drop to the ground, but reached up and up in the blackness of the sky and disappeared.
In one unified movement, the men surrounding him gave identical tugs to the ropes. Almost immediately, five identical metal hooks fell through the dark and landed, clanging, on the pavement behind each man. With swift and efficient movements, the men wound up the ropes and tucked the hooks into their belts.
Ears still ringing from the clanging, Tobin turned in a slow circle, trying to watch every figure surrounding him. He couldn’t. He stopped, waiting.
“What do you have to say?” A figure asked. This one’s voice was light, the figure slimmer and shorter than the others. Maybe a woman?
“I don’t have anything to say.” Tobin said began to relax a little, his chest hurting from the pounding of his heart. “I’m just trying to get through.”
“Through where?” A third man asked. They all looked at each other again.
“Through the city.” Tobin’s sense of the situation as surreal was coming back. He didn’t have much experience with people but surely this wasn’t normal.
“Why?”
“I…” he hesitated, remember Asaph’s mockery. “I’m going to California.”
A low mumble ran through the group.
“There is no California,” said one who had not yet spoken. “It fell off the world a long time ago.”
“So I’ve been told,” Tobin said dourly. “But I’ve also heard that there are people there. And that they’re having babies.”
He’d shocked them. A gasp rippled through the circle. The men looked at each other, quickly, one to the next, and at Tobin. One by one they pulled off their hoods.
“How do you know this?” asked a tall man with dark black hair like coils of wire. His skin was the color of Old Ma’s favorite weak tea, his features broad.
“A peddler told me.” Tobin looked around the circle at the people now exposed before him.
The shorter one, yes, a woman, laughed. “And you believed him? What would a peddler know?”
“Do you know it isn’t true?” Tobin asked.
She looked at her companions and back to him. “California is gone. There’s nothing there. Earthquakes shook it off the coast about a hundred years ago. There’s nothing past the mountains anymore.”
Tobin’s stomach sunk. “This peddler…he said he’d heard from someone who’d been there.”
Another of the group, a man not as ancient as Asaph but with the same white hair, stepped forward. “Nobody comes from beyond the mountains. We sometimes get people here from the warm lands to the South. But everyone knows California is gone.”
“There he is!”
A sudden shriek split the night. Asaph came running down the street as fast as his old legs could bring him. Twenty feet away from Tobin and the circle, he tripped on some rubbish and went flying. Still hollering, Asaph rolled over and over, at last leaping more nimbly to his feet than Tobin would have though possible. Limping, he crossed the last few feet.
“Him!” Asaph hollered. He pointed at Tobin and did a gruesome, gleeful caper on the sidewalk. “I told you he’d be here, didn’t I? I said you’d find him here!”
In a burst of white rage that left him shaking, Tobin regretted not slitting the old man’s throat when he’d had the chance. The thought sickened him and fled immediately, but nothing could change the fact that he’d had it. This city, he thought. This damned apocalypse of a city! He should never have come here.
“I told you, didn’t I? Pushed me down, he did, that bastard. Took what I had found for the Tribe. Look in his pack! Look in his pack! You’ll find it!” Asaph stopped his jigging, pointing around the circle. He flashed an evil grin at Tobin. “He’s a gonif and a liar! And probably a spy!”
The last word rang out, echoing. One by one those in the circle looked at each other, and then one by one, they advanced upon Tobin.
“James Bond,” one repeated. “You have been gathered.
”
−6-
Ephraim was an old man, as he’d told Elanna Hopemother earlier tonight. And he was tired. But more than that...he’d started to become afraid.
“One more season.” Avriham ticked off an imaginary list with his fingers in the air. “The storerooms are full of things we’ve no real use for. For all practical purposes, trade’s been wiped out with the areas beyond the park since most of those settlements have been assimilated by the Bridgers, and the Savage encroachment gets worse every year.”
“You’d think they’d simply fade away.” Ephraim rubbed at the ache between his eyes.
Avriham made a face. “They multiply like the beasts they run with.”
He’d been in charge of the Tribe’s supplies for years. Like Ephraim, he was old. Perhaps not so tired, but certainly he might well be as afraid. After all, who knew better than Avriham, keeper of the storerooms, how perilously close the Tribe hovered to running out of…well…everything? Ephraim pushed a mug of hot tea toward the other man, who sipped it and grimaced before pushing it aside.
“It’s all we have,” Ephraim pointed out.
Avriham shrugged. “Our own grown tea, and it tastes like something we scraped from the bottom of a trash pail. I tell you, Ephraim. The Tribe is...”
“Not failing.” Ephraim raised a finger.
The other two members of the Beit Din at last arrived. Livna barely squeezed through the door, and Solomon was close behind her. They nodded at Avriham.
“We need something more. New trade. New ways of growing food. Something,” said Ephraim.
Avriham shrugged. “Our resources are limited. The soil in the rooftop gardens is fertilized with manure from the veal pens, but it’s not enough. We could have the Gatherers bring more from the park. Maybe enough time’s past, maybe the earth has healed. At least enough to grow things.”
“You want to take that chance? H
ave our babies born with extra eyes or, Ha-Shem forbid, not enough limbs? Webbed fingers?” It had happened in the past, Ephraim knew. It was why they were so careful now to keep perfect genetic records, to only allow good matches for conception. Even with those precautions, three out of five pregnancies still ended in the womb.
“No.” This came from Livna, who gave the men in the room a shifty eyed glance as she settled her bulk into a chair. “Of course we don’t want that. But what about the gatherers? They’re expanding their territory, nu? Moving on beyond our normal borders?”
“Encroaching on Savage territory, yes. Going so far as the Bronx, even. Where other people live,” Solomon said. “So we steal from them? Is that better? Is that the way of our fathers?”