The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale

by Martinez, Brian

  Terence kneels, bringing his mask close to Child's face.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Good.”

  “You look better. Listen, I need to borrow your...” He glances at me. “...your friend here for a little while, but I'll bring her back soon. In the meantime, I need you to stay here and help Boyd. So I'll make you a deal- make sure nothing bad happens to him, and I'll make sure nothing bad happens to her. Sound good?

  She nods.

  “Boyd, how are we looking?”

  “All patched in. I'll make sure the bypasses are wide open, that way if the kid so much as coughs into this thing you'll be able to hear it on the other side of the base.”

  “Alright. Keep your ear on the line for the signal, I'll try my best to talk with Rachel, but I have a feeling she won't be in a listening mood until she gets a little inspiration.” Terence goes to leave, but Boyd stops him.

  “Listen,” he says, “is this for real? You know what I mean. Are we really infecting them?”

  “After they pass through decon they'll be good as new.”

  “We hope. We're talking about the virus here, there are no guarantees. What happens if they're not cured, can we live with ourselves if we're dooming half the people we know to death or monsterhood?”

  “It's a little late in the plan to be having this conversation.”

  “It's never too late. Not for something like this.”

  Terence breathes out. “I think the better question would be, which side of the wall do you want Kate living on?”

  “That's not fair.”

  “Nothing's been fair for a long time. The rules of the game have changed, and my mistake was not learning that soon enough. Would you feel better if you weren't responsible for anyone's death?”

  Boyd shrugs. “Of course.”

  “Then it's on me.”

  “That's not-”

  “It's on me, all of it. I'll accept whatever punishment the group sees fit.” He readies his gun and leaves before Boyd can say another word. I follow.

  We stalk the bright hallway, following Rachel's scent. Terence is surprised to find her room has moved to a different part of the base, saying if I wasn't here with him he never would have found her. I tell him if it wasn't for me he wouldn't be here at all and he agrees, but tells me I'm bragging.

  I quickly pull Terence into a small room filled with machines, and I put my hand over his mask mouth before I have time to explain.

  Foot sounds come around the corner. We huddle in the dark with the machines as the sounds move past us, around the next corner and through a door. The person they belonged to was male, medium weight and didn't have a gun from what I could smell. Guns do have a smell- powder and oil, metal and smoke.

  Light comes from under the door of Rachel's room. I put my nose to it.

  “She's on her bed, with paper between her fingers.”

  “She likes to read at night.” He looks sad about this, as if Rachel has already gotten the death. In a second he wipes this from his face like it was never there. He pulls his mask down to show his mouth and knocks lightly three times.

  Rachel's voice tells us to come in.

  **

  “Oh my god.” Rachel pulls glasses from her surprised eyes and stands from her bed. “How the hell did you get in here?”

  “You left the back door open. Now sit down.” His voice is calm but serious. He doesn't aim his gun at her but he does let her see it, pushed into his belt.

  “Cruz was on watch tonight. Is he...?”

  “Cruz is fine, and he'll stay that way if you and I can have a peaceful conversation.”

  She stays standing. “Did you think you could sneak in here and we would just chat like old friends?”

  “We are old friends.”

  “Were old friends. Big difference, Terence, big, damn difference.” Her room is small. Over her bed is a light, and under it a picture of a city I've never seen. It's strange to remember that there other cities out there. I've only known this one for so long, it feels like the only city in the world. “I see you made friends with the monster girl. I assume that means you ran into Graham.”

  Terence nods.

  “And?”

  “Are you trying to ask me if I killed my brother?”

  “It wouldn't have been a happy reunion, I know that much.”

  “He's become the opposite of everything mama taught us.”

  “Everything's changed.”

  “Yes, but I tried to hold onto the idea that people can be good, that they can still act like a family and look out for each other.”

  Rachel takes a wood frame from the top of her desk. In it is a picture of herself younger, standing next to a car with a man at her side. They're both smiling in a way Rachel's face doesn't seem able to now. “This. This was my family.” Her voice shakes with anger. “This was my whole world, and you let it get destroyed.”

  “You think I'm over that? I've carried Derek's death like a splinter in my chest every day since it happened. All of them. They're still here.”

  “I don't feel sorry for you.”

  “I don't want you to. If you want to feel sorry for anyone it should be the people you kicked out of here who are struggling to stay alive. Werner, Doc, Tommy, Vanessa, they're all out there, and they need your help.”

  She's quiet. Then: “This isn't the only safe place left on Earth.”

  “There are places, yes. Not a home.”

  “You're avoiding the question.”

  “He isn't dead, but he deserves to be. We've been staying in Winter Haven, the hotel on the lake. He came to us in the night and burned it down as we slept. Pamela died from the smoke. Heddie is missing, and I presume she's dead, too. And he did it to lure her out,” he nods to me, “without a second's thought to who he killed. It was you that sent him out, wasn't it?”

  She has the fear in her eyes. “Not to do that. It was only to bring back the young one. Food is sparse, you have to understand that.”

  “Graham is like a rabid dog, and you set him on us.”

  “I didn't know you were still out there,” she shouts. “You could have gone anywhere, you didn't have to stay here.”

  He moves in. “Do you even remember what it's like out there? The ambushes, the nests, the tip-toeing through streets? Do I have to remind you of all the people we lost before we came here, all the infected and the dead?”

  “Of course you don't.”

  “Then help them. Let them in, give them their home back so it can be a family again, without me if that's how it has to be. My mistake shouldn't be their death sentence.”

  She thinks for some time. Then she says, “You had your chance, so did Graham. It's my turn to give these people a normal life now. Letting you in would only upset the balance, and I very much doubt the others will come back without you. They stuck with you once and they'll do it again given the chance. You have that effect on people, and I respect that, but the fact is you're not that different from your brother. Neither of you can see the forest for the trees.”

  “Meaning?”

  She points to me. “Both of you parade that thing through here, yet neither of you consider for a moment how dangerous it is. The entire point of being in here is to stay safe from the virus. Even if you can control her, which I doubt you can, how do you think it makes people feel to see a monster walking the halls?”

  Terence nods to this.

  “So no, you can't come back. If that's a death sentence then so be it, at least it gives the other half of us some kind of chance.”

  He looks around the room, slowly, as if looking for an answer. “This is your last chance, you realize. After this I'm not asking.”

  She grins. “You see? No different from Graham at all. That's the real reason you brought a monster with you, it's your weapon to wave around while you make demands.”

  “I'm not a weapon,” I tell her.

  “Well congratulations on being able to talk, but if that's honestly wha
t you believe, you might not be grasping the full extent of your role in this.”

  “I know what I need to know.”

  “And what's that?”

  “You're in my way.”

  Her grin disappears as she looks to Terence. “You did come here to kill me, you son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I'm more of a chess player. In chess, if you spend too much time staring at the knight in the center of the board,” he slips the mask up over his mouth, “you'll miss the pawn sneaking up the side to take your queen.”

  “What do you-” She stops, listening to the sound from the air vent above us. I know that sound well, and from the way the fear is spreading through Rachel's face, I think she does, too.

  It's Child, her long, loud croak echoing through the base. When I breathe in the room's air, take it into my lungs, I'm taking in the scent of her. Her breath and her voice.

  “Terence...what did you do?”

  “I tried the nice way, and it didn't work, so I'll try another way. And if that doesn't get these people their home back, I'm prepared to burn it down on your head.”

  “My god, what happened to you?”

  “I was betrayed, remember? You were there.”

  **

  We run.

  As we pick up speed through the hallway, Child's voice in the vents above us pushes the virus into the air, wrapping us like a blanket. Soon it's joined by a sound so loud it hurts my ears, a danger voice made worse by sudden lights in the ceiling. They turn the walls blood angry and spinning. Terence says it was Rachel, that she tripped an alarm, which I don't understand but I don't have to. I just have to know that real people will wake from this sound. They'll come into the hallway, and when they do they'll find us and attack us, and there will be too many to fight them all, and our mission will end and Child will be trapped here with Boyd and Kate and the rest of them with no one to help them.

  We run faster.

  **

  I yell to Terence but he doesn't stop in time. He runs into another real person, the man who walked past us before as we huddled with machines. His eyes are small and his thumb is missing. Terence falls forward and hits his shoulder against the wall. When the man sees Terence's face behind the mask, he pulls a long knife from a holder on his leg.

  “Well, well, this is interesting,” he says. “I don't know how you got in here but I'm not waiting to find out.”

  Terence pulls the gun from his belt and aims up at the man. “I don't want any problems, Jake. Put it down and let us go.”

  “I really don't think I can do that.”

  Down the hallways I can hear real people moving in their rooms, stirring from their beds. There isn't time for this so I jump at the man and knock him against the wall. The knife falls from his hand. Wasting no time waiting for him to understand the danger he's in, I scream in his face to show him my teeth.

  “Jesus Christ,” he shouts, “c'mon, man, call her off!”

  Terence gets to his feet. “Let him go.”

  My tongue is stopped an inch from the man's neck. My stomach is so empty that the smell of his flesh is talking to it. I feel myself close to falling over the side of the change, so close to tumbling over and becoming complete. Terence steps closer, his voice soft. “I said let him go. If your teeth touch that man, our deal is off.”

  I try to say okay, but it comes out Hungry.

  “Think about what this means. You'll fail your promise to Child and she'll have to fend for herself out there.”

  I think about it, but thinking doesn't mean I need supplies any less. Child's face, that's what I keep in my eyes. Child's face needing my help. It takes a good amount of strength but I manage to pull my teeth back. I shove the man away from me and he impacts the floor. As we run away from him, Terence tells him he's been infected, that everyone has, and they should get to decontamination if they want to live.

  The man stares at us as we disappear around the corner, monsters in his eyes.

  **

  We get to the air room just as Child is coming out the door. Boyd's gloved hand is on her shoulder, guiding her into the hallway, and she doesn't seem to be bothered by it. He's glad to see us, he says, with his voice telling me he wasn't sure if he ever would again.

  “How did it go?”

  “As expected.”

  “I knew she wouldn't listen. We'll see how different her tune is without the walls. By the way I was looking through the base plans, and I think I figured out how we can join back up with the group a lot quicker.”

  Shouts fills the air, real people coming from their rooms with the panic in their moves, pushing their arms into their faces to stop from breathing the bastard air. This means it's time to leave.

  Someone shows in the doorway ahead of us. It's the shaking man, the one from yesterday when I first came to the base. Graham wasn't happy with what the man was saying, so he scared him. The man sees us coming and shouts to the others to get their eyes on us.

  “Hey,” he says, “th-they're over here!”

  We go right past him. As we do Boyd slaps him across the face. “Stings, doesn't it,” Boyd says, and all the man can do is hold his face.

  Some of the people hear the man's cries and start to follow us instead of going to the exit, three of them, making us speed up our feet. If I were to turn around and fight I know I could stop them easily, but Terence has his mind on not hurting anyone and until I can get him to change his thoughts I have no choice but to follow them.

  The vision screen room is alive with spinning lights and loud sounds, yellow and red flashes, words, strange voices that don't sound real. The three people behind us yell for us to stop. The first of them is almost caught up to Terence at the back of us. Across the room Kate waves us toward her while holding the door open at the end of the hidden hallway under the screens.

  “Get in, get out of the way,” Boyd shouts. We run through the tiny space and join her, Boyd then Child then me, all back in with the rotten meat. Terence clears the door and Kate pushes forward to close it, but the fast man gets his arm through. He screams when the door slams on it.

  “I can't close it,” Kate cries. Boyd moves forward and pushes hard on the door. The man on the other side strains against them, joined by one and then the other as the trapped arm flaps back and forth like a fish that needs air. The hand manages to find and grab onto Boyd's arm, pulling at it, trying anything it can to free itself and open the door.

  This won't end without my help. My nails slice at the skin, causing a wound to scream open. The arm pulls free and the door slams shut under Kate and Boyd's weight.

  “What the hell was that,” Terence shouts.

  I wipe the blood off on the suit. “Help.”

  “What did I tell you about hurting them?”

  “My teeth didn't touch him.”

  His face is serious. “That's not what I meant and you know it. There was supposed to be no fighting until we knew for certain there was no way around it. I'm sorry, but our deal is off.”

  I carefully move Child out of my way before walking to Terence. My face comes so close to his mask I can see my breath across it when I speak.

  “Our deal isn't done.”

  “If there's any chance left of keeping this operation peaceful I can't screw it up by having wild-cards like you two in the mix.”

  “You want to use us like supplies and throw us away.”

  “Don't pretend you aren't using me to get what you want. I can't let anyone get hurt over this unless it's absolutely necessary.”

  “It was.”

  Terence shakes his head. Then Boyd says, “She's right.”

  “I don't need you to-”

  “Shut up. You're a good guy, Terence, but sometimes you can be a bit thick. It was necessary and you know it. If she hadn't done it they would have gotten in here. We'd all be screwed and then who knows what would happen to the rest of the group. There's a time for diplomacy and there's a time for action, and when three guys are trying to beat the door down d
on't tell me you're confused which one it is.” It's a surprise to hear Boyd talk to Terence like this.

  Terence walks away from Boyd and climbs the ladder to the ceiling. “We've lost enough time over this. When this is over, it's time for me to be on my way.”

  Kate says, “You're leaving us?”

  “It's been a long time coming.”

  “It's a difference of opinion over one incident,” Boyd says. “We can work this out, same as we have a thousand times before.”

  “A thousand times too many.” Terence pushes the hatch open and looks back. “Well? Are you coming or not?”

  **

  In silence we climb, first the ladder then the spiral stairs. At the front of the base the real people are in the decontamination room by now. They'll be huddled together in that small room, rubbing the bastard water into their skin. They'll have the fear in their shouts. In a few minutes they'll be in the dark cavern that leads to the great mouth and then the others will have to deal with them, lead them out any way they can, with explosions and smoke, and keep them busy until we get there.

  “We'll be out soon,” I tell Child. Her color looks bad again. My own hand on her face looks the same, more gray than pink. Soon we reach the top of the stairs and run the rest of the way, through the cavern and back to the rock that isn't real, and after the key opens it we're outside again with the beautiful sun and the beautiful voice running through our clothes and our hair.

  Boyd finds the place for us to climb. It's a path leading to the top of the mountain with real people ladders in the steep places. Rust coats the metal and comes off on our skin, turning it brown and red. Kate doesn't like climbing, she says, the height bothers her, the thought of the fall down. Her weak legs shake but Boyd keeps her moving, keeps her talking.

  If I'm honest I don't like the heights, either, but at least I don't say it.

  After we climb the last ladder and pull to our feet, a strange vision shows to us: the top of the mountain is made of glass, a field of dark squares staring up into the sky. They've turned something mountain into something city as only real people can.