Afterworld

by Lynnette Lounsbury

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You are fifteen, are you not?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be sixteen in about eight months.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Eduardo leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He seemed completely relaxed, but his eyes were sharp and Dom felt them piercing him. ‘As far as I, and apparently Satarial, can recall, you are the youngest person to ever enter Necropolis.’ He waited for a response and got none. Dom was too confused. That was it? He was young. He wasn’t different. Just young?

  ‘There have been a few seventeen-year-olds – Eva for example. And I think perhaps there may once have been a boy of sixteen. But you are the youngest I have ever heard of. People will notice you. And that is not a good thing.’

  ‘Why will they notice me? I’m not trying to be modest or anything, but I am pretty average.’

  Eduardo smiled at him. ‘You are young. That is enough. I could feel it in you when I touched you. There is an energy in the young – in you – that is gone here. It fades with age and it fades further with death. The energy of hope and the potential for action. It’s potent. People here miss it and they will feel it around you. It is even stronger in boys. Girls learn to control their emotions earlier. Boys? It is a powerful force.’

  ‘Potential?’ Dom laughed. ‘You sound like my mother. And Satarial wants it? How can he possibly take it?’

  ‘He can’t. But he wishes that he could. The longer we are here the more we have to force ourselves to continue. We all struggle to find the energy to go on. We were never meant to stay in the City long. It is like mud.’

  ‘So what is the point of the City anyway?’

  ‘The Maze is a place of physical and emotional rigour. This is the training ground. A place to face who you were and discover who you need to become to prepare for what is next. It was . . . a good place once. Now it is just a waiting place.’ He rubbed his eyes.

  ‘But where do all the kids go? Lots of kids die every day – supposedly some kid starves to death every three seconds.’ Dom remembered the statistic that had encouraged him to give his entire savings to charity when he was six years old. ‘What happens to them?’

  ‘I am not the Awe. I don’t have all the answers for you. But I believe they may go straight back – to life.’ Eduardo still looked relaxed, but Dom felt overwhelmed by all of the information that was confounding everything he had ever believed in.

  ‘Reincarnation? That’s real? That’s what the Indians believe. I thought it was ridiculous. Wow.’ Dom lay back on his bed. Eduardo closed his eyes and appeared to drift off to sleep. Dom wasn’t ready to let him. ‘Wait – I have, well, can I have two more questions?’

  ‘Of course you can ask them – but I may not be able to answer them. I have been here a long time and there are still many things I do not understand.’

  ‘The Awe. Is that like God?’ The idea of God had always terrified Dom.

  Eduardo smiled, this time with a softer face. ‘That depends. If you mean Buddha or Allah or Ganesh or an old man throwing thunderbolts then your answer is no. If you mean the God in the Bible who killed people and made threats and favoured some over others,’ he said sarcastically, ‘then – no. But if you mean, is it the place we belong and came from and is it a thing worth reaching, then yes – the Awe could be a god.’

  ‘Oh. This is breaking my brain, man.’ Dom put a hand to his forehead. He heard Eduardo laugh heartily.

  ‘I like that – breaking my brain. I understand that. My brain is very broken.’

  ‘Last question okay?’ Dom tried to think of the one that he wanted to ask the most. There were so many. ‘Will my family come here eventually? My sister is seventeen.’

  Eduardo’s face immobilised. The laughter stopped and the last part of his smile melted. He looked into Dominic’s eyes, seeing through him into somewhere else. Then he looked away.

  ‘If they die young, before their time – they should come here, yes. It doesn’t mean you will find them. This place is huge, an entire world of death.’ He sounded tired and his voice was dropping to a soft rasping whisper. ‘And time is different here. Things take a long time. A very long time.’ He pulled his feet off the table, took a last swig from his flask and stumbled to the bed against the far wall. ‘I am more tired than I thought, Dominic. We will talk again in the morning.’

  ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Dom knew the answer already.

  ‘You said two questions. That would make three.’ He lay down and turned away, a mirror of Eva.

  Dom sighed. Being dead certainly didn’t make people any happier. Or maybe only unhappy people came here. Perhaps the happy ones went back to life or on to something else. There seemed to be all sorts of weird rules. No young people, no animals, no old people. Pain, but no death. He had to find work. He had to watch out for Angels and half-Angels and who knew what else would turn up. He wondered how Kaide was. What if she had died too? She would be here somewhere. And his parents? They had lost a son and maybe a daughter as well. How would his mother manage to drown those sorrows? He lay down on the bed, trying to stop thinking. Satarial kept coming to the front of his mind, staring at him intensely, burning his hand with that terrifying touch. What did he want?

  And even though he had died, had met the Nephilim and discovered that there was actually some sort of God, he was surprised to realise that the image he truly couldn’t push from his mind was the one of Eva smiling at him.

  5

  Dominic’s Hourglass

  1 Minute

  Eva was not smiling when Dom opened his eyes to find her face above his.

  ‘Get up, it’s time to start work.’ She was inches from him and her long hair had fallen on his shoulder. Dom could barely think. Who was she again?

  ‘Get up. You’re still dead. It’s not a dream.’ She gave him one last long look that he couldn’t read and walked away. He sat up slowly, his eyes adjusting to the strange light of the room. It felt like bright sunlight was spilling in, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  He felt gritty and his clothes were a little grubby; a smear of blood was on the shoulder of his white shirt and there was a minor tear in the bottom of his jeans.

  ‘Is there anywhere I can take a shower?’

  ‘Not worth it, since you have to work. But there is water down the hall, wash your face and try and do something with your hair.’ The briefest of smiles passed over her face before she turned away and rummaged in a box by her bed. ‘Do you want a change of clothes? I have another shirt here. And a cloak. It’s always the same temperature here, kind of cool.’

  He tried to clear his thoughts, he felt terrible. Being part of the senior basketball team he’d had his share of post-game celebrations so he knew what a hangover felt like, but this felt even worse. Dry mouth, puffy eyes and a head made of lead.

  ‘I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘You’ll live,’ Eva said.

  He heard a chuckle from Eduardo’s bed and turned to see his Guardian looking almost as bad as he felt. His hair was tumbling everywhere, his eyes puffy and half closed with sleep. The chuckle grew to a deep belly laugh and Dom joined in. It was funny. And it got funnier until it felt like the funniest thing he could ever remember hearing. Even Eva smiled a little at the two of them. She had managed to seem as immaculate as if she’d had hours to get ready. Her hair was unbraided, but it was clean and brushed and shining – a rich reddish brown. Russet. People paid money for that colour, but he suspected it was natural. The more he watched, the more he wanted to touch it and as the last bits of laughter died in his throat he reached out his hand involuntarily. She was too far away, but she noticed and frowned.

  ‘What are you doing?’ It wasn’t a question. She turned back to packing her bag and braiding her hair.

  Dom noticed she was looking in some sort of mirror on the wall as she concentrated on braiding. It seemed like any other patch of the dark wall, except for the reflection. He checked the wall behind his cot to see if it was reflective.
It wasn’t.

  ‘Touch it,’ said Eduardo, who was also dressing and wrapping his fountain of hair in a thick piece of fabric.

  Dom put his palm to the wall. It was immediately reflective so he saw his own surprise.

  ‘It becomes what you need. Mirror. Window. Doorway,’ Eduardo said casually.

  Dom gazed at his reflection. His face didn’t look too different. There was some blood crusted on his forehead and he had dark circles under his eyes, but he still appeared to be alive. He was not the pallid zombie he imagined he might have been. He simply looked tired. And Eva was right about his hair; while he had died, it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. His neat dreadlocks were a crazed afro above his head. And it seemed as though it was longer than yesterday. He looked at Eduardo and Eva’s hair.

  ‘Does hair grow extra fast here?’

  Eva ignored him, but Eduardo grinned. ‘It’s the only thing that keeps growing. I used to cut it every day, but it seemed to make it grow faster. If I keep it long, it slows.’ He threw Dom a piece of thick fabric and Dom tried to pull his matted hair into a high ponytail, wrapping it tightly. He could be in a reggae band. He hoped that there were different ideas about employability here because he looked like the type of guy who would never get a job back home, except perhaps selling dope to tourists. He scratched the blood off his head. There wasn’t any wound underneath. He noticed that the scar on his cheek, a deep one he earned falling off his bicycle when he was seven, was gone. So were the others on his hands. Perfectly clear skin. Another irony. People spent so much time and money, his mother being a perfect example, on looking perfect when all they had to do was die. His mother would be happy to know wrinkle- and scar-free skin was in her future. He felt suddenly sad when his mother’s face came to mind, partly because even in his imagination she seemed depressed, but mostly because he knew that now she had a real reason for sorrow. Her son was dead. And while she hadn’t been much of a mother the last four or five years, she had been great when he was young, lively, happy and exuberant. He might have had a very different life if he wasn’t adopted by her. He could have been in a foster home and he certainly would not have travelled the world. Though he might still be alive. His reflection was starting to fade back into wall. He hoped that Kaide was okay. His mother wouldn’t cope with losing two children. Kaide. There had to be a way to find out where she was.

  He stood and pulled off his shirt. His back was stiff and he stretched his arms out in front of him. As he reached for the plain white shirt Eva had thrown on his cot he caught her watching him. She turned away quickly and he dropped his head to hide his smile. He might be two years younger than her, but he was just as tall and had been in basketball-training all year. He never knew either of his birth parents and had no idea of his father’s name. His mother’s signature was on his birth certificate, but all that was legible was an initial and a common surname: ‘A. Green’. His adopted mother told him that she had met his birth mother once. A girl with pale skin and blonde hair only a year older than he was now. There was no information about his father. He had obviously been black – Dom’s skin was a coffee colour that Kaide had envied, tanning herself regularly to try and emulate it. The closest she’d ever got was a golden bronze. He’d often wondered what else he had inherited, if perhaps his love of basketball was hereditary or if his father had loved to play computer games and eat pizza. He used to dream when he was young that his father had played in the NBA, that one day he might win a championship and offer his ring to the son he never knew. Dominic would step out of the crowd and be reunited with his father. The fantasy fell apart in a number of different ways, the most notable being that Dom would rather die than be watched by hundreds of thousands of people. It was one of the things he disliked about India. Everyone was always watching him. And last night he had discovered there was a good chance it would happen here, too. He had never had dreams of celebrity. Not like Kaide, who took every opportunity to be noticed. The only place he didn’t mind being watched was when he was playing ball. Or maybe when Eva was watching him get dressed.

  He took the cloak Eva offered. It was rough-hewn and uncomfortable, but he hoped that like everything else here it would appear ancient, but turn out to be an amazing technological marvel. It didn’t. It felt like nettles. He scratched his shoulder.

  ‘You get used to it.’ Eva watched him.

  ‘No you don’t. You save minutes and buy a better one.’ Eduardo gestured to his own cloak, which, while similar in design, was made from linen.

  ‘Save your minutes to get out of here,’ Eva reprimanded. ‘They don’t feel that bad.’

  Dom stayed silent, just scratching at the places where the cloak rubbed his skin as he moved. He hoped his work wouldn’t be too physical or it would rub his skin raw. They filed out of the room, Eva in front and Eduardo limping along behind, one hand to his head, shielding his eyes as they left the small building and walked out into the street. Eva checked the alley cautiously and turned to her left, walking further into the City than they had the previous evening.

  She spoke softly over her shoulder. ‘It’s not a dangerous place in the daytime, but remember that your minutes are precious. People can’t steal them, but they want you to waste them, to lose them. It makes them feel justified for still being here, I guess. They will try to trick you out of them.’ She turned back, and added as an afterthought, ‘I guess we find out today if you are unusually noticeable. You don’t look fifteen. Maybe sixteen.’

  ‘He looks twelve to me,’ Eduardo rasped.

  Dom grinned behind her back, but it melted quickly as they walked towards a group of market stalls and every eye turned towards him. The space was a small square of cobbled stone between the buildings and there were little huts with cloth awnings and a variety of goods on display. Dom glanced at each of the stalls as he passed: cloaks, shirts, blankets, pottery and carved wooden bowls. There were chai sellers, and big pots of soup, as well as someone selling what appeared to be hotdogs, but couldn’t have been. Everything smelled strong and spicy – foreign and unfamiliar. And everyone was looking at him. They weren’t staring coldly, but they watched with intense emotion, almost confusion.

  ‘Don’t panic. They just know you are fresh blood. Eva and I are well known.’ Eduardo clamped a hand on his shoulder and didn’t let go. It felt as though he were using Dom’s body as a crutch. Some Guardian.

  ‘They know Eduardo. I haven’t been here that long,’ Eva retorted as she walked up to the first stall. ‘Two please, and two bottles as well.’

  The owner of the stall was a tall, thin man, with almost stick-insect proportions. He might be Indian. He handed Eva two round loaves of bread and two metal bottles. She paid him with one minute from her bag and handed half the food and drink to Dom. There were benches and tables set out along the side of the path, but she ignored them and kept walking. Eduardo groaned.

  ‘No breakfast for me?’

  ‘You can buy your own.’ She began to eat her food while she walked.

  Dominic ripped his in half and gave some to his Guardian who took it with a grin and another hearty clap on the shoulder.

  Eva snorted. ‘You’ll be hungry later. You won’t get paid till the end of the day.’

  Dom tasted the bread. It was warm and soft and delicious. He ate it in three bites and immediately regretted giving any away at all. He pulled the stopper out of his bottle and took a drink. It was a strange taste. Almost like honey, refreshing and clean and sweet.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked Eva.

  ‘Water. It’s just water.’

  ‘It doesn’t taste like water.’

  ‘It’s water without anything in it. No chemicals. No dirt.’

  He drank more then decided he should keep some for the rest of the day and put it into his satchel. When he looked up again they had rounded the last of the buildings and were approaching a huge warehouse. It was the size of several aeroplane hangars and was built of slabs of stone and featured the occasional
large wooden gate. There were no windows, but Dom supposed the stone was transparent from the inside. To the side of the front entrance was a much larger marketplace with hundreds of stalls set up haphazardly, and dozens of eating areas where people were sitting, waiting to go to work. It was crowded and almost buzzing with activity. Not as loudly as a marketplace in India would have been. It was strangely muted, less vibrant, a tired version. He saw a vendor haggling unenthusiastically with a customer over some bread, giving in eventually with a shrug. Not in India anymore, Dom. He shook his head.

  There were several vendors selling only fruit and vegetables. A huge array of brightly coloured and perfectly shaped apples, pineapples and just about every other fruit he had ever encountered. There was another selling grains and peanuts and someone else selling bags of flour and sugar. He wondered where all the food came from. He was actually yet to see anything growing here. Aside from the forest by the strange lake, he hadn’t even seen weeds along the road or between the cracks in the footpath. Come to think of it, there weren’t even any cracks.

  The people closest to him glanced at him warily, the same expression on each of their faces – almost confusion. A couple of them reached out to touch him, catching themselves at the last minute, embarrassed. Eduardo whispered behind his ear, ‘They do not want to hurt you, but I told you, they sense your youth, your energy. It’s like a scent. They are drawn to it. It’s a very strange sensation for them.’

  There was a line of people filing in through a small doorway and Eva led him towards the back of it. They were such a varied group that Dom could not tell what sort of job it was going to be. Some were older men, wearing business suits, others young women in casual jeans, a very fat man who waddled forward in his dark cape and the oldest person he had seen so far in Necropolis, a bearded man of about sixty.