by Lolly Walter
“The sun’s rays are too intense. You can get away without wearing protection for a while, but prolonged exposure will affect your vision.” Joe jogged as he talked, and Devin had no choice but to keep up. “It’s best to run in the early morning or later at night, when the shadows are longer, too. Helps keep you from getting sunburned, which is still possible even with the latest version dermal fortification injection you got that first day here. How’d you manage it up in the hills?”
Devin shrugged. “Never went out.”
Joe’s head flicked in Devin’s direction. “You never went out? How did you live?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.” Saying more, talking about Tanner — Devin wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. “Where are we going?”
“Suit yourself.” Joe shook his head. “We’re heading north now. If you look, you can see downtown to our left, and the old college campus at around 10:30.”
“What does that mean? 10:30?”
“Like a clock.” Joe made a gesture like a circle in front of him. “Imagine a clock face stretched out before us. The old college is at 10:30.”
“What’s a clock?”
Joe stopped running. Devin jogged a few paces forward and turned back to face Joe, whose hands were on his hips.
“What?” Devin asked. Defensiveness and anger flared. It was bad enough that his new life was going to be spent at Joe’s complete mercy. They didn’t need to add pity or derision into the equation.
“You don’t know what a clock is?” Joe’s voice was soft, his footfalls cautious, as he approached. “That’s not new tech. It tells time. Like the timepiece I’m wearing.” Joe pointed at the black band on his arm.
Devin had noticed it before, but he had no idea what it was. He stared at his feet, and when Joe’s feet came into view, too, he took a step back.
“Time tells you when to go places, when you should eat, when it’s bedtime. That sort of stuff. Did you…” Joe’s gentle voice dropped even quieter, and his hand lingered near Devin’s wrist, like a butterfly trying decide whether or not to light. “Did you go to school, Devin?”
“No school in the fucking hills, douche.”
The force of Joe’s sigh chilled the sweat on Devin’s arm. “Okay. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people here didn’t go to school. Let’s run.”
Devin had been holding his breath, waiting for the mockery. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that it hadn’t come. He fell into stride beside Joe. They ran in silence for several minutes, past three- and four-story buildings interspersed with tiny houses and dead, overgrown vegetation spotted here and there with green.
“I know how to read,” Devin offered. “I… There were books at home. I read a lot.”
Joe nodded. “Did you like it?”
“Yeah.”
“I liked to read, too. You can read the books I have in my room, if you want. Our room. It’s our room. Our stuff.”
Before Devin had a chance to reflect on what Joe had offered him, a large plant caught his eye. It had flat, oval leaves, or something like leaves, anyway, and big, sharp-looking spikes.
“Prickly pear,” Joe said. “It’s a kind of cactus. They aren’t up in the hills?”
“They are. I saw them the day I left. Didn’t know what they were called, though. They’re the only living plant I’ve seen.”
“In school, when I was a kid, I read about how this place used to look, before The Change.” Joe wiped sweat off his brow. “It wasn’t lush here or anything, but there were plants besides cacti and animals besides snakes and predators. Cows lived around here. Can you believe it?”
“I read about cows,” Devin said. “In this book about this lady Mary Amelia who had an arranged marriage to a cattle rancher and came to, I don’t know, this wilderness or something. She didn’t want to go, because she was from the city and she’d never met the rancher. Archer was his name. But she ended up loving him and his ranch and the cattle and sheep and shit, in the end.”
“Take a right. We’ll run toward the east a bit then head home.”
Joe’s shoulder bumped Devin’s arm when he didn’t turn fast enough, but Devin didn’t flinch away. Their feet slapped the worn pavement, slightly out of sync. If Devin were to guess, he’d say he took four strides to Joe’s five. Joe didn’t seem to notice. His eyes scanned the area in front of them, always on alert.
“Sounds like a nice story,” Joe said, surprising Devin. “Here, slow down a bit. I want to see something.”
This street matched every other street, as far as Devin could tell. No one was outside. No critters or unusual plants caught his eye. The tall buildings had given way almost exclusively to houses, though a low, faded blue concrete building sat off to their right. The yard around it was overgrown in the way most things were, like they’d been abandoned, the grass left to grow wild, and then the grass had died.
When Devin was younger, Tanner had cut the dead grass away from their house. He’d said the grass made the house more likely to catch fire. He hadn’t let Devin help, and he’d worked on it for days and days, until a gap between the grass and their house stretched thirty feet across on all sides. Fire had seemed a remote possibility up in the hills, isolated as they were from even the houses around them. But down here, in the city, where the buildings sat so close together and the brittle, dead plants stood so high, Devin had no trouble imagining the world set ablaze.
“Where are we going?” he asked when Joe veered off the street and toward the blue building. Inside the mess of dead plants, Devin saw something that resembled the swing set that had sat in their backyard. He didn’t remember ever playing on it.
Joe inclined his head toward the building. “I went to school here.”
He grasped Devin’s hand and tugged. Devin pulled back, but not for his usual reasons.
“I don’t think we should go in a building. Better to be out in the open than go inside where we can’t see trouble sneak up on us.”
Joe turned wide eyes onto Devin and broke out the first real smile Devin had seen on him. He looked younger when he smiled, closer to a teenager.
“That’s smart, Devin. Good.” Joe kept Devin’s hand but stopped trying to force him forward. “Most people living in the city hunker down inside during the day and don’t come out unless they mean you harm. That’s why we always need to be fast. And we shouldn’t go in buildings, like you said. Even people that don’t mean us harm will defend themselves if we break into their space. But no one’s going to be here.”
Devin puffed up a bit at Joe’s praise. His next question would wipe away Joe’s approval, but he had to ask. “Why won’t there be anyone in your school?”
Joe’s grip tightened. “There’s nothing here anyone would value anymore. Come on.”
***
Joe hadn’t returned to the school in at least two years, and he hadn’t attended classes since he was eleven, eight years ago. He hadn’t planned to go by there today. He normally avoided any reminders of the life that had left him. But Devin’s admission that he’d never been to school and the two of them talking about reading had made Joe want to visit the place.
The main hallway was smaller than he remembered. Faded construction paper hung from the walls, though Joe couldn’t tell what had been drawn on it. Here and there, the false ceiling had fallen, and vandals had written crude slurs and descriptions of sexual acts. Joe had trouble imagining a bigger waste of time than defacing a school. Other people hadn’t found school the escape he had, though.
Devin was quiet beside him. Joe knew his partner was spooked, worried that someone would attack them, but a school wouldn’t attract people. There was no food here, no guns, no tech that could be stolen and sold to the scavengers that came down from the north. The few valuables that had existed here had been taken long ago.
Midway down the hall, they came upon a tiny water fountain that had been installed when Joe was in fifth grade. “State of the art,” the principal said at an
assembly. “Recycles water, uses no electricity. We’ll never run out of water.” She winked and smiled at the fifty or sixty little kids sitting on the cafeteria floor. “Tell no one.”
Joe told his father that night.
His father had shaken his head. “Mrs. Mendez is lying, mijo. The water fountain uses a superharvester solar cell. It’s tiny, so it’s hard for vandals to see and break or steal. The water may be recyclable, but that doesn’t mean it won’t run out. Still, she’s right to tell you not to tell anyone. Guard your resources.”
Joe put the memory away. He’d take it out some other time, imagine his father’s smile, his eyes.
Devin ran curious fingertips over the gray metal and jumped when he hit the button and water spurted from the spout.
Joe hid his grin behind his hand. “It’s a water fountain. The water should be okay to drink, if you’re thirsty.”
Devin pressed the button again but let go and tried to cup his hands to catch the water. When the water turned off and Devin came away empty-handed, Joe laughed a little.
“Hold the button in, then bend your head down and get a drink.”
Grumbling something under his breath, Devin held in the button and dropped his head. He took a few tentative sips, then gulped water in huge swallows until Joe batted his head away from the fountain.
“Remember what I’ve told you. If you drink too much, you’ll get sick.”
“Yes, bossy ass.”
“Complain all you want, but do what I say.” Joe kept talking, mainly to spare himself whatever annoying retort Devin would come up with. “We’re going to the library. You’ll like it.”
“I know what a library is,” Devin said. “My mom had one.”
That news piqued Joe’s curiosity. Devin might get defensive if Joe acted too interested, though. He tried to act casual. “She did?”
“Yeah. Well, I guess it belonged to my mom. I don’t remember her. Shelves of books lined an entire wall. Tanner said they were for girls.” Devin ran his fingers through his sweaty hair, ruffing it up into long blond spikes.
“Who’s Tanner?” They’d come to the library door, but Joe wanted to wait to go in until Devin answered him. He wanted to hear Devin’s story, to learn how he’d ended up white and alone in Austin.
Devin’s eyes flicked from Joe’s face to the door and back again. Joe had decided to back off, had opened his mouth to say Devin didn’t need to tell him, when Devin spoke.
“He was my brother.”
The soft admission hung between them, and Devin shrunk in on himself.
“Was?”
“He died a few weeks before I left the hills. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Words intended for comfort didn’t mean much, so instead Joe opened the door to the library and ushered Devin inside.
“Holy shit,” Devin said.
The smell of mildew permeated the air. Dust covered the books, but their colorful spines were visible underneath. Despite the decay, Joe knew he was giving Devin a treat.
The shelves, like the rest of the school, were small. They barely came to Joe’s chest. He’d broken in to the old University of Texas library once, before he came to Flights of Fantasy, so he knew how tall the shelves could be, how immense a real library’s holdings were. His little grade school library had been his favorite place in the world, though, and seeing it now filled him with as much excitement as it had when he was a child.
“Nice, isn’t it? Did your mom have this many books?”
Devin shook his head. His eyes darted everywhere, but he stayed rooted a foot inside the door. He was waiting, Joe realized, for permission to explore.
He brushed his hand down Devin’s back. “Go on. Look around. There are little kids’ books to the left, but there are chapter books and nonfiction books on the right. That’s probably where you want to go. We can take one or two home with us, if you see something you’d like to read.”
“Really?” Devin asked, but he was already stepping forward, his eyes roving the shelves.
Allowing himself a small smile, Joe followed, at least until he got to the nonfiction section. He stopped in front of the science books and scanned the shelves, searching for the book he knew he wanted. The warmth in his heart that had bloomed over Devin’s wonder at the library grew into a wild, galloping heat when he found the green and yellow book he’d read over and over as a child. He sat down on the floor and opened the book. The cover creaked, and some of the pages were stuck together, but Joe reveled in the words, in the promise they offered.
He lost track of how long he read, but he’d made it halfway through the book when Devin loomed over him, a book in each hand. Joe patted the floor next to him, and Devin sat, his legs crossed like a little boy.
“Found something?” Joe asked.
“Little House on the Prairie and On the Banks of Plum Creek. I read Little House in the Big Woods at home. Have you read them?” Devin’s eyes sparkled, and his knees bounced up and down.
“Laura Ingalls? Mrs. Garcia, my second-grade teacher, read one of them to us. I liked it. A lot different than the times we live in now.” Joe smiled and patted Devin’s knee, hoping to slow the bouncing.
“Will you tell me about school?” Devin leaned forward, and Joe got the impression he’d be tackled if he didn’t answer quickly.
“How about I tell you all about it tonight after lights out? We need to leave now, and I want more time to tell it to you right.”
“That’d be great,” Devin said. “What’d you find?”
“Biodomes.” Joe shook the book and stood. He held out his hand and helped Devin to his feet.
Devin’s nose scrunched. “What’s that?”
They left the library, walked down the hall, and exited the school before Joe answered.
“It’s a place where the world is the way it should be. It’s where I’ll find my father.”
***
It had never occurred to Devin that Joe had family. Why the fuck, if he had a father, was he living like an orphan and selling his body?
“You have a dad?”
Joe bristled. The muscles in his torso tensed.
Past the school, a low, violent growl rumbled down the street, followed by harsh, loud barking. Answering barks sounded from farther away. Devin’s hair stood on end, and he grabbed Joe’s arm.
“Let go of me and walk calmly until I tell you to run, papi.” Joe gently untangled his arm from Devin’s grasp. Their eyes caught, and Joe raised his eyebrows and nodded until Devin nodded along with him. “Walk on the balls of your feet. Be ready to run.”
Devin’s breath came too shallow and rapid, but he squared his shoulders and walked next to Joe, denying the urge to panic, to run. Dogs roamed the hills, too, and one time, watching from behind a heavy red curtain in his foyer window, he had seen them tear a man apart. He begged Tanner to shoot the dogs and save the man, but Tanner said they couldn’t spare the bullets. Blood had stained the road for days.
“Breathe,” Devin told himself. He inhaled, heavy and halting, and focused on Joe beside him, his light footfalls, his even breathing.
The barking came again, closer.
“I’m going to look back, but you keep your head facing forward,” Joe said. “Stay—”
“Close.” Devin wouldn’t forget.
The movement of Joe’s head was almost imperceptible in Devin’s peripheral vision. The catch of his breath sounded like a gong, and Devin ran before the command left Joe’s mouth.
He’d broken a half-step before Joe and was running full-tilt, but all the bragging Joe had done on the treadmill wasn’t bullshit. Joe shot past him. Devin pumped his arms harder, tried to ignore the barking, louder now, and elongated his stride.
His feet pounded the ground and his heart pounded in his ears, and all that existed was the mad rush of the run and the terror of being caught.
The black bottoms of Joe’s running shoes kicked furiously in front of him, and Devin couldn’t catch them. For long, ach
ing breaths, the dogs were closer than the soles of Joe’s shoes. Devin was sure he was dead. The air whipped behind his ankle with the snapping of a dog’s jaws.
Then Joe was veering left, scrambling up a set of rusty metal steps onto a landing. He reached toward Devin, and Devin half ran, half got dragged up the stairs. Two steps from the landing, Joe yanked him forward onto his knees and reeled the staircase off the ground.
Through the grated metal that comprised the floor of the landing, Devin watched the dogs jump and flail and gnash their teeth, trying to get to Joe and him. Sweat dripped from Devin’s skin, down into the open mouth of a brown-gray beast below.
“Don’t move too much,” Joe said. His voice sounded as calm and effortless as ever, and Devin hated him a little for being so unaffected. “This fire escape may not be structurally sound.”
Devin grunted because he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. His eyes were riveted on the dogs.
Nine of them, different breeds, different sizes, barked and snapped. At first, Devin focused on the sharp teeth and the fevered limbs and the angry eyes. But they were more than that. Mangy fur, ragged and missing in places where the skin had been scratched raw. Ribcages visible on the short-haired ones. Blood. Missing ears.
Devin closed his eyes and tried to swallow his revulsion and pity. “In the books I read, dogs were pets. Like friends of the family.”
From where he stood flat against the building, his knees at Devin’s head, Joe dropped his hand and stroked Devin’s hair. A few days ago, he’d stopped giving Devin warning before he touched him. Devin had been meaning to tell him to knock it off, but now he knew he never would. He laid his head on the side of Joe’s thigh, warm and human and safe, and let himself be petted.
“We had a dog when I was a kid,” Joe said. “Barclay. God, I loved that dog. He had floppy ears, and sometimes when I petted him I would have sworn he smiled at me. Slept on my bed every night.”
“What happened to him?”
“He ran away after my dad left, and I’d promised my dad I’d stay safe. I couldn’t even look for him. I don’t know if I hope he’s dead or if I hope he belongs to a pack like this.”