by Platt, Sean
(plastic)
and the inside edges were lined with another unknown substance
(rubber gaskets)
but Carl paid them no mind. What he wanted was inside.
(My Coke. That half-eaten mess ration I never finished because the sea finally got me and I started throwing up.)
The simple, odd objects struck Carl with a sense like nostalgia. How did he know it all when he’d never been here before? How had he forgotten it, believing he’d never seen the inside of this place?
The small refrigerator, long since dead, had kept the ration from bugs but had failed to keep it from mold and rot. The smell was preserved, greeting Carl in fetid welcome.
He threw it across the freighter’s bridge, nearly gagging.
The can of Coca-Cola, opened two decades ago and set aside until after Carl had decided he was a totally different person, had evaporated. But there was another thing inside, and Carl grabbed it like a drowning man: one of several bottles of water, sealed inside their plastic prisons.
Without thinking, Carl spun the cap. Only once the bottle was half-gone did he stop to wonder how he’d known the way to open it, how he’d known the bottle was here, or how he’d known it wasn’t poisoned or bad.
Bullshit. I put these bottles here myself. Pulled them from the mess hall, which is down the set of stairs just outside, down the narrow hallway, to the right, beneath the …
The cargo.
Why had he thought of that before he’d climbed up? And why was he thinking of it now?
“Hello,” said a voice from behind.
Carl nearly jumped out of his skin, turning. But in the second before something big and gunmetal black hit him hard and pinned him to the deck, Carl saw a woman in the opposite doorway wearing an Old-Earth dress, tight, her hair dyed blonde, her bearing upright, her lips and nails painted to match her dress.
Then he heard a guttural, inhaling rattle, like a purr.
The thing above Carl had its mouth open, and deep in its throat he saw a throbbing blue spark.
Chapter Six
Meyer held out an arm, a single finger extended skyward. Without turning to face Lila and Piper, he hoped the message would be clear: Wait. Don’t move. Something’s happening.
Piper moved up beside him with Lila at the rear. When Meyer crouched, his joints popping and threatening to give them away, Lila and Piper stooped, too.
They were behind the house and most of the way across the grounds, nearly to the stables. The day was warm bordering on hot, and the sky was blue, but in addition to the urgency with Clara, Meyer was certain he’d seen something else amiss.
Piper caught his eye. Raised her eyebrows, but didn’t speak.
“There’s someone behind the stables,” Meyer said, voice just shy of a whisper.
“So?”
Meyer shook his head. He couldn’t say why the flash of something had bothered him; he only knew that it had. Maybe it was the tempo of the almost-seen thing that was troubling: too fast and darting, as if trying to hide rather than simply passing by. Or maybe it was the location; the governor’s estate bordered the merchant district, and the alleys between were more for storage of goods than transportation, given how fat they’d grown with wares. Merchants often pooled resources to trade guards for service, to watch for thieves. Meyer didn’t think he’d seen anyone moving beyond his fences in months. And when someone did go back, they moved methodically, stepping over piles.
But mostly Meyer was bothered by a feeling that whatever he’d almost seen had somehow struck him as familiar.
Not just a person walking but more like an animal he’d observed many times in a way he couldn’t remember.
Not a person wearing black or with dark skin but a thing low to the ground that was black, and scuttled like an insect.
His skin crept. His testicles hugged up close, his hands unwilling to hang limp at his sides.
“Meyer?”
He saw it again, and this time Piper did, too. He reached back to push Lila down, as if she was still a kid, and together the three of them found themselves crouching behind one of the near shed’s rain barrels.
“Clara, Dad. We have to—”
“Shh. It’s them.”
“Who?”
But Meyer wasn’t sure. His words were a reaction, like a doctor striking his patellar tendon with a small rubber hammer.
And that didn’t make much sense either, seeing as the village doctors mostly used bandages, plant salves the Unforgotten had taught them how to make.
Patellar tendon?
Rubber?
“Dad, you’re scaring me.”
That was okay. Meyer was scaring himself. There was the thing he’d thought he’d seen ahead, and there were also (he was increasingly becoming convinced) at least two similar almost-seen things to the right and left. Piper and Lila had been behind; they wouldn’t have seen. Meyer was deluded. Only he felt compelled to crouch on a clear and pleasant day, knees hurting, while his granddaughter was suffering from something unknown, tended to by the Mullah.
(Who’d followed them through the caves.)
(Whom they’d traveled with, before Peers left the village to join them as kin.)
“Dad?”
“Lila. Do you remember Peers?”
“What peers?”
“No. A man. A man who traveled with us, named Peers.”
“Traveled where?” Lila asked. Because she’d never traveled. None of them had. They weren’t merchants or couriers. They’d lived in this place forever, just like anyone else.
But beside Lila, Piper was frowning. “I—”
There was a cracking, crunching from their left, stopping Piper’s lips and eliciting a gasp. They were concealed in the nook between the shed and a rain barrel, but Meyer could put his eye to the gap and look out, seeing the monstrosities now crossing from the barn to the home’s rear.
When he turned, his face must have betrayed his shock because Piper pushed forward. Meyer stopped her with a palm, but in the past twenty years she’d developed an eye-rolling intolerance to following his lead. Piper had once let Meyer call the shots. But that was no longer true, and became less so by the year.
“Don’t, Piper.”
“Dad?” Lila said. “What is it?”
Piper met Meyer’s eyes. She didn’t go to the gap, or peek to see what Meyer had spied.
“They’re back, aren’t they?”
“Piper?” said Lila.
“How many did you see?”
Meyer shook his head.
“Do you remember, Meyer?”
“Remember what, Piper?” said Lila, now actively afraid.
“Come on.” Piper took the lead, pushing Meyer aside. She moved into the open, crossing between the shed and a pile of lumber due to be built into yet another gubernatorial outbuilding. She had Meyer by the sleeve, eyes on Lila to follow. Once farther on, Piper checked their vistas and moved again, no longer holding Meyer, moving as if she’d done this before.
“When we get to the stable,” Piper said, “we’ll need to ride bareback or not at all. There’s no time to saddle up. They’re Mullah horses, and the Mullah ride bareback. The horses will be okay with it if we are. Lila?”
Lila nodded.
“Meyer?”
He considered protesting, saying he was getting too old for this shit, like a character from one of the films he used to produce so many years ago.
But then that random thought stopped making sense, and he nodded, too.
“They’ll hear us,” Meyer said.
“Who?” Lila asked.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t think they’re here for us.”
“What, then?”
“Kindred,” Piper said. “If I had to guess, they’re here for Kindred.”
Lila gripped Piper’s arm, her eyes wide and brown and depthless. “What’s happening, Piper?! Tell me!”
Piper looked around then sighed.
“Close your eyes, Lila.”
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“We don’t have time for this, Piper.”
“Quiet, Meyer. Lila, close your eyes.”
Lila closed her eyes.
“Think of Clara. Not whatever is happening with her now; don’t think of that. Just think back. To when she was younger.”
“Okay.”
“A lot younger. A toddler, Lila. What was she like as a toddler?”
Lila’s eyes snapped open. “Oh. Oh, Jesus.”
“Do you remember?”
“The palace. Not this place.” Lila ticked her head toward the small, rock-built home. “Something much bigger. And … and the bunker. Dad? You had a bunker somewhere, underground.”
“Vail,” Meyer said, reeling back through time.
“And Clara … oh hell.” Lila looked at Piper, and a look flashed between them. Piper couldn’t read minds as she now remembered she’d once been able to, but Lila’s eyes said that they’d shared the same awkward thought. A flash of recollection of the Vail bunker led to a memory of Heather. Meyer’s ex-wife, before Piper. Lila’s real mother; Clara’s grandmother.
Piper’s hand went over her mouth, her blue eyes suddenly enormous.
“Later,” Meyer said, shifting so he was between them. “Piper? Later. Right now, we need to focus. Clara. She needs help. Okay?”
“Lila …” Piper said. “I’m—”
Meyer shook his head. “Later,” he repeated. But even in the tense moment, Meyer couldn’t help but sympathize with Piper’s emotional flood. In the space of seconds she’d lost a daughter and granddaughter. She wasn’t Meyer’s first and only. He’d lived an entire life before her.
“The aliens,” Lila said. “There was a … flood?” Hand over mouth, the two women like bookends. “Oh my God. The flood. They must have killed off—”
“Lila!”
“Why are they back? They left! They finally left us alone! It’s been twenty fucking years!”
Meyer was about to grab Lila and pull her away, toward the stables, but Piper beat her to it. The trio made another short sprint, and then they were in the cool of the stables, an overhead rope dangling from the loft, rocking slowly back and forth in the breeze through the front door and out the rear.
“Are you sure they’ll let us go?” Meyer asked.
Piper shook her head. “It’s just a feeling.”
“Like the feelings you used to get?”
“I …” Piper exhaled, frustrated. “I don’t know.”
“You said they were here for Kindred.”
“There are three groups. One was already behind the house. Maybe I assumed they were all moving in on the same spot, and that’d have to be Kindred’s if they’d already reached the house.”
“Piper? Is that just a hunch, or—?”
“I don’t know!”
Meyer watched her for a long second, then nodded decisively and pointed to three horses in turn.
“Lila, take Shy. Piper, you ride Missy. I’ll take Leroy. Thread your fingers through the mane, and squeeze with your legs.”
“I don’t know how to steer without reins,” Lila said.
Meyer was already climbing up, then kicking aside the box he’d used to mount Leroy. He threaded his fingers through the horse’s mane and leaned forward.
He realized how odd it all was. In this life, Meyer had never ridden bareback, either. He only knew how to do it because before the Astrals, when in his twenties, he’d volunteered at a camp and learned the skill to impress a woman. Only remembering his modern past would help them survive their agrarian future.
“Then I’ll take the lead,” Meyer said. “Just hang on, and your mounts will follow.”
Chapter Seven
“Mother Knight?”
Liza looked up. She was between rows of peas, weeding. Being bent over so long made her back ache, and the sun, even filtered by cloth, was punishing. But it was good to be outdoors. Confined spaces, ever since crossing the sea on the Astral vessel, made her uneasy. She’d take sunburn and backache over being boxed in any day.
“Yes, Jason.”
“Brother Richard does not answer the call.”
Liza smirked. Richard was probably hungover. Holy ways had changed this time around. She was seeing to it. Her father had been a priest, and her mother — mostly because Dad’s domineering encouraged her more than faith — had taught Bible study six days a week. Liza hadn’t cared for the old ways. But remembering had its advantages, like when the Lightborn kids became teens and conveniently reinvented fermented beverages — clerics, shamans, and all the rest of the holy hodgepodge from the early days wondered whether it was God’s will to consume it. Liza had given her blessing. Drunk holy people were more fun than sober, in Liza’s opinion. And just wait until someone found marijuana seeds this time around.
“Enter his room, and shake him, then,” Liza said. “Members of my rectory do not miss meals.”
Jason seemed uncomfortable. He looked down, into the engineered soil the Lightborn had quietly placed into the hands of a few farmers when growing was tough, and nearly smashed a tiny plant — corn, perhaps — with his toe.
“What, Jason?”
“His door has been locked.”
“Unlock it.”
“From the inside, Mother.”
Well. Liza didn’t like that. She hated locked doors in her house, and the rectory was, after all, more or less hers. She’d commissioned it, commandeered the labor to have it built, and because she’d spent a stint in her old life at a residential construction firm, knew better than most how to fabricate a structure that wouldn’t fall over. The monk was probably beating off. One of the side effects of discouraging the old world religion’s sexual repression along with its statues against public drunkenness.
“Then have the Master use his key.”
More turning of the cleric’s toe in the dirt.
“You asked the Master, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Liza swore. She could be dainty when needed, and often in the public eye had to appear as the soft old lady who kept the holy people in line and suitably pure. Part of the job, and the price of keeping a read on the village’s superstitious pulse. Religion had always served as a basket for confidential information, and secrets gave a woman power and control. Corruption hadn’t evolved too far yet, meaning whispers still held plenty of meaning.
She stood and brushed by Jason without a word, her stride younger than her years. If Richard had jammed his lock to keep the Master from entering — a trick other monks desiring privacy had used before — he might end up permanently breaking it. If that happened, they’d have to knock the door off its hinges, and then there’d be hell to pay.
Liza reached the monk’s door. Jason hadn’t followed, knowing better than to chase the matron when she was in a foul mood.
“Richard,” she said, knocking. “Open up.”
There was no sound from beyond.
More firmly, using her no-bullshit voice. “Open up, Richard.”
Liza looked down the hallway, decided she was alone enough, and raised a fist. She pounded on the wood with its underside, her mouth open to shout when the door cracked open. It wasn’t locked after all. Not even latched.
But the monk’s room was empty. Bed crisply made, floor swept, wash basin dried and buffed clean.
She looked through the small window, pulling back the simple drape. There was no glass, but the spartan rooms had windows that were too small to climb through. Not that there’d be any need, with the door wide open despite Jason’s ineptitude.
Still, something itched at her scalp.
Liza left the room, heading back toward the garden. Halfway there she turned and decided it wasn’t Jason she wanted but the Master himself. Jason had called the man with his key, and if he was telling the truth, neither had been able to figure out how to unlock a door that stood more or less wide open. So either the Master was drunk as well, or Richard had cleaned up and fled in the few minutes it took for Jason to report
and Liza to respond.
But the Master’s room was also empty.
Bed crisply made, floor swept, wash basin dried and buffed clean.
And that was interesting. She’d chosen the Master because before he’d forgotten everything along with the rest of them, he’d been a lieutenant colonel with the South African National Defence Force. She’d brought him in assuming he’d retain his tendency toward confrontation in a crisis (which he had) and his discipline (which he had not). In his rebirth as the rectory’s Master, Paul Blanthy had turned out to be a total slob.
Liza returned to the garden. But Jason wasn’t there. He wouldn’t just stand and wait for her to return once she’d run off, though he always seemed afraid of her enough to do exactly that.
And she’d passed nobody in the hallways, despite it being so near mealtime.
Liza felt a chill. She’d never had the dreams some of the others reported in confession (guilt was still useful in Liza’s new religion), and she’d never been particularly superstitious. Liza believed what was in front of her, not what was invisible and breathing down her neck. But she felt this now, like a presence. Something gone wrong, even though all seemed well.
She reentered the hallway and knocked on the first door. But there was no farce even of closure this time, and the thing simply opened wide. She saw another meticulous chamber, empty.
She went to the next.
Empty.
And so on down the line, until Liza realized she was being ridiculous. Of course nobody was in their rooms. What had she told Jason? Nobody missed meals in Mother Knight’s rectory. Only Richard had been stubbornly refusing to answer — something he must have realized and done before Liza arrived at his door. The others would be in the small, cozy cafeteria. Of course.
Except that Liza hadn’t heard chatter in the air, and Liza’s rectory didn’t honor vows of silence. Quiet creeped her out, reminding Liza of the idiotic still that had fallen over the others during her seafaring adventure, when they’d all gone stupid except for her. Like confinement, silence was unnerving. Liza encouraged drink, boisterousness, and generally required that her monks, priests, and clerics be human beings so long as they could be holy when it counted, tending to village needs as its shepherds.