Scowling, she stomped over and turned the player off, bathing the room in silence.
She set her hands on a radiator cabinet and leaned close to the window on tiptoe, peering up at a hollow shaft in the center of the building. Rusty wheelchairs and picnic tables stuck out of deep sand dunes, flowing with mud. Sheets of rainwater poured off the exposed edges of all the floors above in loud, splattering streams. Green light flashed in the courtyard, in time with another crack of thunder so loud she screamed from the suddenness of it. Hands clamped to her chest, she scurried away from the window, breathing hard for a few seconds. Once the shock wore off, she sank to her knees, shaking.
“That was loud. I shouldn’t go back outside ’til this stops.”
Kiera crept across the hallway and peered into the next nearest room. A group of skeletons lay scattered around, two on a metal bed frame, more on the ground. The bare footprints of adults crisscrossed the dirt on the floor, and one of the skeletons had been broken apart, probably by someone taking its clothing. All the dead wound up with their skulls facing right at her. Again, she shrieked and scrambled away from the grisly sight, running back to the safety of the room with the digital music player. She flopped on the floor by the bedpan-turned-campfire pit, and decided not to look in any more scary rooms.
While nibbling on a Devil Dog and sipping the last water bottle from the first six-pack, Kiera sat for a while in silence. The robot said I could make it to the village without dehydrating. I have six bottles left. I’m gonna be okay. She shivered, hating being alone more than she’d ever hated anything in her life. Even robotics class.
Chin on her knee, she stared down at her feet while tracing lines in the rain she’d dripped all over the floor. Daylight began its rapid retreat, likely early due to the awful weather. Kiera leaned over and turned the digital player back on before crawling into the nest of plastic scraps. Even if they talked about sports she had no interest in, the voices of two dead men echoing off the bare concrete walls made her feel less alone.
Ashamed of herself for wanting to cling to her parents like a little kid, she closed her eyes and tried not to let the thunder frighten her.
11
Nightmare's Teeth
Kiera’s bladder woke her up early the next morning. A heavy blanket of humidity saturated the room, turning it into an oven. Sticky from sweat, she peeled herself away from the plastic scrap bedding and stood. The pouch held five Devil Dogs, two of which she planned to have right after finding a spot to pee. Considering she felt like the last person left on Earth, a suitable spot wound up being ten paces outside the building in the dirt. After, she walked only far enough to find a hunk of concrete to sit on to stay out of mud, and downed two Devil Dogs plus the first water bottle of the second six-pack.
Her meal done, she hopped off the rock and strolled across the goopy mud. The rain had ceased sometime during the night, leaving the cloud dome bright again but the air wet. What had been soft, powdery silt had become like walking in ankle-deep pudding. The steady wind would probably dry most of it out before the day ended, helped along by the ninety-ish degree heat. The all-day shower did have one nice benefit: her hair floated free, no longer caked into a mass from the dried-up slime.
Howling wind far off in the sky worsened her feelings of loneliness. She kept her gaze down, sometimes kicking mud to the side or sweeping her foot around to make patterns. Bands of grey and brown smeared in the sludge like one of those pretty rocks from science class. Kiera grinned at the thought it looked like melted rocky road ice cream.
She got thirsty an hour or so on, and drank another bottle while walking. Is it wrong to litter? Kiera stared at the empty bottle, thinking of Legacy telling her the water had to last. I can’t be that far away from the village now. She tossed the empty and kept going.
After an hour or two, she began muttering to herself, complaining about the robotics test or the epic boredom level of Mr. Powers’ class. The wind continued without end, every so often gusting hard enough to knock her a step or two sideways.
“We found this cute little blue dress for only $180,” said Kiera in an imitation of Ashleigh. “Mom’s gonna buy it for me so I can wear it to school tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” she replied back in her normal voice. “I’ve got a new ensemble from the Birthday Suit collection. It’s really comfortable and great to wear in the rain, too. I can even go swimming in it.”
She did an impression of Ashleigh’s excited face. “Oh wow! How much did that cost?”
“It was on sale! Only a couple years locked up in a tank full of frozen snot.” Kiera sighed. “Is talking out loud to myself a sign that I’ve gone crazy?”
Her lip quivered and she sniffled into tears again, but kept on walking. The loneliness of a wasteland gnawed at her. She hadn’t ever been apart from people this long before, nor so lost, confused, and frightened. Her parents or Ashleigh were always no farther away than a text message or phone call; she’d never truly been alone. Now, she had no way to contact anyone, and no parents to protect her. Even those three bandits started to feel like a not-so-bad option.
Kiera grabbed her throat, too choked up to speak, and sobbed in silence. She could barely see through her tears, but it didn’t matter. Not like she’d walk into anything out here.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice wavered with sorrow. “Mom, Dad… I’m sorry for saying those mean things. Please come back. I don’t want to be alone.”
Overcome with loneliness and grief, she stumbled to a halt and squatted, arms wrapped around her legs, head to her knees, listening to the faint howl of the wind everywhere. Her hair danced across her back, reminding her of her need to find clothing. That, in turn, reminded her of her need for water and food. Giving in to sadness and just sitting there would only get her hurt. She stood, wiping her eyes, and trudged on. Head down, she stared at her feet disappearing in the muck with each step.
Hours drifted by in a haze of random memories of home, school, friends, and her parents. Eventually, the constant wind hardened the ground to a texture like clay. Given the humidity, it would be a while before it dried once more to powder. A hint of blacktop emerged from the mud up ahead, with a line of utility poles on one side and three crumbling high-rises on the other. The dead buildings all had the same basic rectangular shape. Their uniformity suggested apartments, but the middle tower leaned away from the street, ready to fall over if even a single pigeon landed in the wrong place. The most distant structure had split apart, leaving one face by the road with the rest of the building scattered out across the desert to the right like a stack of plates that had fallen over. Since the scrap of road almost matched the direction she wanted to go, she decided to follow it.
Kiera moved to the utility pole side of the street, shying away from the dangerous structures. She walked about in a turn, begging in her mind for someone nice to find her. Another day alone, and she’d scream. Maybe go crazy.
Growling came from her left and behind. At first, she disregarded the sound, assuming it a figment of her imagination. When it got louder, she looked back over her shoulder. A shorthaired black dog resembling a cross between a Doberman and a wolf stood by a mound of debris that had once been a building. Stark yellow eyes stared straight into her soul as it bared large teeth.
“Be a good dog, okay?” She walked a little faster. “I can’t play right now.”
Another dog walked out from behind the rubble, staring at her. It, too, snarled.
A flash of black on the right made her whirl. A third dog crept closer from between two of the apartment buildings. Dog number four peered out of the shadows by the end of the last building, a distance in front of her. The pack stalked into the open, surrounding her.
Kiera screamed and ran, heading for the nearest utility pole. She dropped the pouch and water bottles, leaping to grab on to the metal studs sticking out from the sides of the pole. The dogs came charging, snarling, and jumping after her, their teeth snapping shut far too close to her
feet. She kept shrieking as she climbed all the way to the top where bits of old power lines still dangled from porcelain insulators.
Clinging to the damp wood, she stared down at a group of seven dogs gathered about the bottom. One stood on its hind legs, forepaws against the pole, drooling and growling.
“Heeeeeelp!” shouted Kiera. “Please! Someone help me!”
Her voice echoed over the ruin.
Dogs paced in circles around the base of the pole. Two sat, staring up at her, seeming content to wait for her to fall.
“This isn’t real. Now I’m having a nightmare. Stuck naked up a telephone pole with evil dogs trying to eat me. This is the worst nightmare I’ve ever had.” She cried herself to laughing. “Evil… Devil Dogs. Yeah. I ate too much sugar. These things are here because I saw Devil Dogs. Now I know this is a dream.”
The animals kept circling, waiting, watching, snarling.
She hugged herself tight to the ancient wood, shaking. “These kinds of dreams mean people are afraid of stuff… yeah, like getting eaten by wild dogs.”
It didn’t take long for her legs to cramp up and her hands to go numb from clutching the metal step rods. Silence offered hope. She opened her eyes and peered down. All seven dogs sat there, patient, as calm as if they waited for her to throw a tennis ball. The second she made eye contact, they resumed snarling. It occurred to her that their fur looked an awful lot like King’s strange hairy shorts. Had he made them from dog leather?
She shivered.
Killing dogs seemed so wrong, but at the moment, she might not have minded these particular dogs having something bad happen to them. Like a random city bus coming out of nowhere and running them over.
“Help!” she screamed again. “Is anyone there?”
Even if the kidnappers found her, being forced to work for someone probably wouldn’t be as bad as becoming dog food. She cried out for help a few more times, but only her voice echoing back answered. The dogs’ ears perked up. Two wagged their tails like they smelled her fear and expected dinner time to be arriving soon.
I can’t stay up here… my hands kill already. She shifted her weight enough to let go with her right hand. Opening and closing her fingers a couple times helped a little, but it hurt as soon as she grasped the metal rod again to do the same for her other hand.
“Go away,” she said, downward. “Shoo. Bad dogs!”
One leaned its forepaws on the pole again, licking at the air.
Kiera whined. She glanced up at a thick wire running from the pole to one of the apartment buildings, connecting to the wall about where the third story became the fourth. Oh, no way. She wiggled her toes, trying to get feeling back into her feet. Clinging to the side of a telephone pole wouldn’t last much longer before her muscles gave out, no matter how scared she was.
I can’t believe I’m really thinking about doing this… She stared at the wire. I’m gonna fall soon anyway.
The dogs paced around below, almost appearing docile, staring up at her like they wanted to play.
“Nice try. I don’t believe you.”
She stretched up and grabbed the wooden cross spar where the wires connected. If she thought too much about doing it, she’d never do it. After pulling herself up to hang by her hands, she edged to the left until she got a grip on the wire, legs pedaling at open air. The dogs migrated a little to the side, staying under her.
Kiera rotated to face away from the building and shifted her left hand to grab the wire from the other side. With a grunt, she bent up and hooked her legs over for support. Hand over hand, she pulled herself along, swaying in the wind. The snarls and groans of dogs stayed below her, but she didn’t dare look down. Only the wire existed. Inch by inch, she crossed, tilting her head back enough to gauge her distance to the ancient apartment building. The wire swayed and bobbed, but held her weight.
A torturous few minutes later, she reached the crumbling wall. Kiera took a few breaths to get ready, tightened her grip, and let her legs slip free so she dangled by her hands. She hung from one arm long enough to grab the wire the other way and rotated to face the building. A leg stretch got her toes on the sill of a third-story window. She planted her right foot on a vent fan cowl, and with a kicking shove, released the wire to grab the top of the window frame. A rush of terrified adrenaline came and went while she hung off the side of a building. The glass was long gone, so as soon as the fear-paralysis faded, she eased her hands down the frame until she squatted on the sill, refusing to look down at the pack of growling animals.
The fragment of an apartment didn’t reassure her much. About a third of someone’s living room remained, a triangular-shaped section of floor suspended on the inside of two walls. The rest of the building had collapsed away into a debris field. Kiera crawled in and sank to sit on moldy wooden floorboards, a ledge hanging thirty feet off the ground. To her left, a spread of mushrooms and toadstools grew out from the wall. She had nowhere to go, but better, the dogs had no way up here unless they could fly. And, huddling in the corner with solid floor under her proved far more comfortable than clinging to a telephone pole. She pulled one foot into her lap and massaged her sole where the metal rods she’d been standing on left a red mark.
Snarling and growling came from below, along with the snapping of twigs and rustle of small bodies moving among debris. Scratching, claws on brick, followed.
Kiera hugged her knees to her chest and bowed her head. All the fear of scaling a wire crashed on top of her terror of the dogs. She trembled, muttering, “I’m having a nightmare,” over and over, trying to convince herself of it.
Eventually, she abandoned her hope she might be having a nightmare and huddled in the corner, resigned to waiting the dogs out. She wanted them to give up and go away soon, since she’d dropped her water and food out by the pole.
“Please, let me wake up. I don’t like this dream. I want to go home.”
12
No Better Option
Kiera sat motionless for hours, wedged into the corner against crumbling walls as far away from the edge of the broken floor as she could get. She tried to move as little as possible, shivering in fear that her perch, part of an old living room, might fall at any second. The wind tossed her hair about, a chaotic storm trapped within the hollow space. Eventually, she lifted her face away from her knees, disappointed to see the world unchanged. She hadn’t been dreaming. A pack of wild dogs really did want to eat her.
The growling from below had stopped and the sky gave off the sense of late afternoon. She’d wasted most of a day, barely having covered any distance. Worse, she’d dropped her water. Not that she’d gone too far from it, but the dogs might be watching.
She let her feet slide forward until her legs lay flat, and looked around. The triangular section of floor sagged in the middle. A bit of wall jutted out from the left, enough to show where a doorway had once connected to the next room. Dreading that she’d have to climb back across to the wire to get down, she rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled to the edge. Her motion made the floor under her wobble. Fear leaked out her nose on a faint whine of apprehension. Still, she kept going until she reached the broken end and peered past it at the ground.
The area two stories down contained the first green plant life she’d yet seen since waking up, mostly weeds and creeper vines growing in the shelter of the first floor walls. Nothing a person could eat. She didn’t notice any trace of dogs, nor any obvious way down aside from jumping. Nothing existed of the second story, giving her a thirty-foot drop to deal with. Straight ahead, the greater part of the building stretched out as a long line of rubble where it had toppled over. Little remained recognizable, as though the atmosphere had once been corrosive enough to dissolve bricks, wood, metal, and furnishings into a mismatched mound of debris.
“Guess that’s why there’s so much nothing.” She stared off at the seemingly endless field of pale grey silt. “It’s like the whole city turned to dust.”
A creak came fro
m the floor directly under her.
“Eep!”
She scurried back from the edge and crawled to the other corner. There, the wall offered a little more hope. A beam at the second story stuck a few feet out of the wall, and a large metal fuse box reasonably close to it looked like it might support her weight. If she could climb onto that, she’d only have a small distance to drop to make it to the ground. It looked less dangerous than going back across the wire to the pole.
Kiera turned around and lowered herself over the edge feet first to hang by her hands. She crept to the left until she could reach a metal pipe running along the wall. She transferred her grip to the pipe, then shimmied across to the giant wooden beam, stepping in holes wherever the wall offered one. When she reached the beam, she tested it with one foot, bouncing a little before trusting it with her full weight. Confident it wouldn’t break, she stepped up onto it and dusted her hands off.
This is kinda like that climbing place Dad took me to, only with more death.
Bright plastic-colored handholds had been a lot more comfortable to grab than old wood and thin metal pipes bolted to bricks. Plus, there, she had a padded floor and harness to save her if she slipped. Losing her grip there had meant only the shame of failing in front of people who would probably laugh at her. She squatted on the beam and backed up a few inches. The only way she could think of to get to the fuse box involved a leap of faith.
After a preparatory deep breath, she jumped forward, flying at the wall and landing with both hands grabbing the top of the metal cabinet. Kiera nearly bounced off when she crashed into it, but clung so tight her fingers hurt. Once the shock of slamming chest-first into a metal box wore off, she braced her feet on the exposed bricks.
“Ow.” She cringed before peering down.
Citadel: The Concordant Sequence Page 13