The Dirt Walkers

by David Joel Stevenson

  “Well,” Thomas answered, “he only told Talitha – the girl that came back with him. She said that she only told one person directly, and he already knew. He's their leader – their mayor, if you want to call him that. He already knew and had been keeping it a secret from everybody else because he had control of them somehow. But obviously that means that some people underground know that the surface is safe to live on.

  “However, she did send a letter to a bunch of people. She more or less wrote a note and posted it so that anybody that knows her would see it.”

  The crowd went from calm to chaotic. Jonah didn't understand the panic; there were many towns that they knew of on the surface. Why would this town be any different without knowing more details?

  Thomas raised his hands to try to quell the crowd.

  “Please, folks, please,” he said. “She also said that she wasn't sure if anyone would believe it, because she had talked about wanting to see the surface for most of her life and everybody laughed at her for it. From her talk, the people there really believe that they would die, even if they just opened a door that would let the air in.”

  “What if they do believe her, though,” Raymond growled. “What are we going to do if they come up here with their alien guns and want to take everything we've worked hard for?”

  Jonah thought it was ironic that Raymond would talk about work. Everything that Raymond had was left to him after his parents died, and he would rather milk a bottle of whiskey than a goat. His animals were frequently sick because he simply forgot to feed them or was too lazy to clean their stalls. But he had an awful lot of them, so the occasional death in his herd didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Relax Raymond,” Thomas reassured. “Jonah and Talitha haven't said anything about alien guns – these are people just like you and me.”

  “They don't even use guns,” Jonah interjected.

  The whole crowd turned to face him and Jonah paused.

  “What do you mean they don't use no guns?” John Schultz inquired from the front row. “How do they do their huntin'?”

  Jonah hadn’t seen Schultz since they’d gotten back to town, even though he had been helping the Whitfields with daily chores. Jonah started to realize just how little he had communicated if even Schultz knew hardly anything about his experiences.

  Thomas raised his eyebrows and motioned for his son to continue to speak.

  “Well, they don't hunt, but that's kind of a long story,” Jonah said. “They don't use guns, and they found some bullets that I dropped and thought they were fake. I don't think they've used guns for hundreds of years. The only weapons I saw were basically sticks that would— Well, if you touched them, it felt like your insides were burning.”

  “So – you touched one?” Schultz wasn't trying to, but he was making Jonah nervous.

  “I… I got into a fight with a couple of their lawmen,” he answered.

  The crowd rumbled.

  “They were going to throw Talitha in jail because she saw something she wasn't supposed to see. I was trying to protect her and they attacked me.”

  The crowd's volume slowly grew with indistinguishable conversation.

  “But you got everythin' worked out,” Schultz yelled over the crowd, trying to finish Jonah's story for him. “You talked to the lawmen and they let you kids go, right?”

  “Not exactly, Mr. Schultz.” Jonah couldn't tell if Schultz's face cringed from the answer, or from being called Mister. Thomas' brow furrowed with nervousness.

  “They actually whooped me pretty good because of the sticks,” Jonah continued. “It seems like they're not used to fighting – like they weren't used to someone standing up to them. But they got the best of me with their sticks and I was asleep for a few days. They thought I was dead.”

  The eyes in the crowd were wide. Murmurs continued to spread throughout.

  “What happened?” asked Gertrude Pearson, the wife of the town's blacksmith, Brick.

  Jonah looked back at his father, hoping to receive some sort of guidance as to how to answer the sudden bombardment of questions. Thomas still held his brow in a concerned wrinkle, but again motioned for his son to speak.

  “I… Um…,” Jonah said as he cleared his throat. He considered the options he had; he could either figure out an answer that would calm the crowd, or he could tell them exactly what happened. He decided the truth, uncomfortable as it was, was the best response.

  “We escaped.”

  “What do you mean you escaped,” said Brick, his voice towering over the ever growing rumbling in the crowd.

  Jonah wiped his forehead, realizing he had started to sweat.

  “I woke up in a doctor's room and crawled out of – well, a tunnel that connected all of the rooms. I found Talitha and we went through the tunnels until we got to the surface.”

  He decided it would be best not to mentioned that he got into another fight with the control officers just before they were free from the Facility. But even without that detail, the townsfolk were in an uproar.

  “So after you posted some note about the surface being safe, they tried to kill you, and then you kidnapped a girl that was also in trouble. And you think we should be okay because you think they don't have guns?” Raymond yelled.

  Jonah again decided to not to correct Raymond's assumption that Talitha sent her message before the control officers tried to kill him twice.

  “Listen – everybody!” Jonah raised his voice over the crowd. “It's not as bad as it might sound! The people underground honestly believe that they'll die if they come to the surface, and more than that they don't want to leave their town. None of them work – I mean really work – and they like it that way. They sit around playing games and complaining about what their clothes look like. And even if they wanted to come to the surface, we don’t think their leader will make that very easy for them.”

  The townsfolk continued to worry loudly to one another. Jonah hoped that after the meeting, his neighbors would be quick to embrace Talitha as one of their own, but instead they seemed to be more concerned with an army rising out of the Deathlands. Questions and answers were passed back and forth for over an hour.

  Jonah returned to Talitha's bedside to find Lillian teaching Talitha how to sew.

  “How did it go?” Lillian asked, a moment before noticing the despair in Jonah's face.

  “Terrible,” Jonah said, defeated.

  “Was it about me?” Talitha asked.

  “Not about you, exactly,” Jonah said. “But about the Facility. We told the whole town what happened down there, and everybody is afraid that your people are going to attack us.”

  “What?” Talitha exclaimed. “They wouldn't do that – they're afraid to even open up a surface duct! The only way that anyone would come here is if they're trying to escape the way that we did!”

  “I know,” Jonah sighed. “But they wouldn't listen to me.”

  “Let me talk to them,” Talitha said.

  “I want to introduce you to some of the townsfolk soon,” Jonah answered, “but not yet. You're only just now getting your strength back, and I don't want you to have to endure a million questions and possibly accusations.”

  “What are they going to do now?” she asked.

  “Well, after going back and forth for a while, they're still bent on us protecting ourselves. They decided to build an outpost near my hunting tree to house a scout at all times. All of the able-bodied men are going to take turns watching the Deathlands, ready to return to the town on horseback to rally everybody if needed. They're going to tell towns near ours to do the same.”

  Talitha sat for a moment, processing the information.

  “That actually sounds good,” she said.

  “What?” Jonah asked, surprised. “How is that good?”

  “Think about what one of the scouts would see, Jonah. The two of us took hours to get out of the Deathlands, and you knew what you were doing. We were exhausted, hungry and thirsty, and we ate and
drank under that tree. Right after that, I got so sick that I couldn't walk. Your people will see a lot of people who are in need of help – not an army.”

  “I'm not so sure,” Jonah said.

  “I agree with Talitha,” Lillian spoke up. “As soon as some of them get a chance to talk to her, they'll know that they don't need to be afraid of her or the rest of her town.”

  “The rest of her people aren't like Talitha, Lillian.”

  “You're just saying that because you're in love with her,” Lillian teased.

  Talitha blushed and Jonah jokingly threw a pillow at his sister.

  “I'm serious, Jonah,” Lillian whined. “From everything I've heard both of you say, it will be pretty clear that they're not coming to hurt us. We should just be worried that we have enough food.”

  Lillian snickered.

  “That's true,” Talitha said. “We'll need to convince your leaders to have some filtered water and soup at the scout's post so that anyone from the Facility can survive the journey here. And to store up more food than usual.”

  Jonah smiled.

  “That's easier said than done,” he said. “I think we might get the chance to talk to them about having water and a little food at the scout post, but food is not as easy to come by here as it is in the Facility. Your people will have to come ready to work.”

  “If that’s the case, then somehow I get the feeling that you're going easy on me,” Talitha smirked.

  “Because he loves you,” Lillian teased again, kissing the air.

  Jonah rolled his eyes at his sister.

  “I'm not complaining,” Talitha said with a smile.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Reena wept as she replayed the video recording of Azazel’s execution. Several control officers flanked him on either side, leading him to what appeared to be the door to the surface. The officers wore bulky suits with multiple layers between them and the air with oxygen tanks attached to their backs. Azazel simply wore his tattered uniform.

  Fire licked the doorway as the supposed exit opened to the surface. Objects had apparently been brought in for the sole purpose of melting in the heat. Strange sparks flew toward the group holding on to the boy.

  It was quite a spectacle. One that she had seen before from executions many years ago.

  The control officers shielded their tinted glass covered faces from the bright flames while Azazel’s body stood tense but proud. He was part of the Midlet, and it was obvious that he was not going to give the cameras the satisfaction of breaking him.

  But he was broken.

  Reena saw it in his squinted eyes. It was the same false strength that she had shown him less than forty-eight hours earlier. His teeth were clenched and his face cocked to the side as if it would protect him from the heat. There was a defiance in his whole body. But in his eyes, he was asking her if this was supposed to happen. He was screaming out why?

  As he was tossed through the doors, he screamed, “For the Midlet!”

  And he was gone.

  “May the Maker hold you until we meet again, when we all see the sky,” Reena whispered to the screen, as she had each time she watched it.

  “Please stop watching that,” a tired voice spoke from behind Reena.

  Reena had watched it over and over at the public wall tile, the only way to see it since laborers did not have their own wristiles. She was analyzing it, as if she hoped it held some sort of code that would let her know that Azazel was, in fact, perfectly fine. But all she found were her own tears.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, or how many times she had watched it, but apparently other people couldn’t handle it anymore, either.

  “He’s gone, Reena,” the voice said again as Reena lowered her head.

  She backed away from the wall and joined the gray bearded man seated at a table. It was not common to see gray hair. Not because of the age restriction in the Facility, but because most of the laborers simply didn’t survive long enough for it be an issue. Hokmah was one of the oldest men known in the Midlet. He was strong and smart, learning from other people’s mistakes before making many of them himself.

  “It’s not your fault,” Hokmah said as he spread his hand over hers. “It’s not any of our faults.”

  Reena balled her fists, pulling away.

  “It’s his fault,” she said through her teeth, pointing toward the Upper Levels of the Facility. “Quilen Coomy. And it’s their fault. Every single one of those citizens above our heads who have been keeping us in the shadows and the darkest corners of this Maker-forsaken prison since before our grandparents were born.”

  Hokmah’s brow raised inquisitively, but kept his calm demeanor.

  “So you think that the Maker has forsaken us, do you?”

  Reena relaxed slightly.

  “No. Uh—” she paused. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve heard the stories since I was a kid. But we’re still here. I want to believe the videos – that we could live on the surface – but I’m afraid that any efforts to get us there will end in more death. I just watched Azazel die. My husband and son are dead. I see people die all the time. And tomorrow I’ll just go back to cleaning manure from cages. I’m not sure what I believe at this point.”

  Hokmah leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table.

  “This reminds me of one of those old stories,” he said. “The Maker’s chosen people were enslaved, completely crushed by the powerful—”

  “I’ve heard it a thousand times, Hokmah,” Reena interrupted. “That one is told the most. The Maker’s chosen people were slaves until a man rose up to lead them away from their ruler into paradise. But I don’t see anyone rising up. I’m not strong enough to lead, and I don’t know anyone else who is either.”

  Hokmah waited for her to finish before saying, “I think you’ve missed a few key points in the story.”

  Reena frowned. How could she have missed anything in something she had heard for over thirty years?

  “First,” Hokmah began. “If an all-powerful being was only interested in the comfort of his chosen people, why would they be in slavery to begin with?”

  Reena was surprised that she had never considered it before, as if there were some purpose in the oppression itself. “Why, then?” she asked.

  Hokmah laughed.

  “Well, I can’t be sure,” he answered. “Like you, I’ve only heard the stories passed down from other men and women. I’ve never read them directly from the Book. The Maker has never told me exactly what he thinks about it. But I think it might have something to do with comfort itself. Meaning, perhaps He took their comfort from them so that they relied on him more. But that’s an opinion, and one of many possibilities.

  “The second thing that I believe you missed… You said a man rose up to lead them away from slavery to a paradise.”

  “Yes,” Reena agreed.

  Hokmah nodded his head.

  “The way I understand it,” he continued, “is that this man had been hiding for most of his life from a crime he committed. He did not choose to rise up to save the other people – he had been running away. Instead, he was chosen. And only after that, he was given the tools and the direction. He did not set out to be a hero – he was only trying to take the next right step.”

  Reena looked away for a moment.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “You don’t expect me to do anything, do you? I don’t know the next right step to take, and I’ve never heard The Maker choose me. I just can’t stand watching people die anymore, especially if there is a place we can all go.”

  Hokmah nodded his head again.

  “Maybe that’s it,” he said. “Maybe the choosing doesn’t happen with some great spiritual sign, but with subtlety. The people in the Midlet trust you, Reena. They listen to you, even though you’ve avoided any sort of leadership since your husband and son were killed. I think they would follow you even if you don’t give them specific directions. So, perhaps you’ve already been given
a tool for change.”

  Reena stood, looking at the spot on the wall where Azazel’s execution had displayed moments before.

  “But I don’t have any idea what to do, if I’m supposed to do anything,” she said, hopelessly tossing her hands up. “If the Maker wanted me to lead, then maybe he should give me a hint, rather than tie my hands with work while watching my friends die.”

  Hokmah smiled.

  “I’m pretty confident that it’s not the all-powerful Maker of the Universe who is holding you back at this point, but something much smaller.”

  “What is holding me back, then?” Reena asked.

  Hokmah eased back in his chair a bit, as if to prove he had things figured out.

  “You,” he said.

  .- -.-. -

  Jonah impatiently tossed supplies into the wagon behind one of his family’s horses. He was already breathing heavily and his journey had not even started.

  “Slow down a bit, bud,” his father said. One of his hands gripped a single bag of cornmeal while the other clutched his cane. He walked over to the wagon and threw the bag on top of the pile. “She’ll still be there when you get back, even if you take your time.”

  “I know,” Jonah said without slowing. “I just don’t want to leave her alone this long.”

  Since Jonah brought Talitha out of the Deathlands he hadn’t been away from her longer than a night’s sleep. His afternoon and evening chores had long breaks in the middle to make sure she was okay. She had only just entered this world, and he didn’t like the idea of leaving her for days on end.

  “I know you don’t, Jonah, but she’s not alone – we’ll be here with her. Besides, she’s a young woman, and you can’t protect her from everything. Sometimes it’s good to be alone, you know?”

  Jonah paused for a moment, knowing that his father was right. He had always cherished the time he spent in silence on the edge of the Deathlands, and even he grew a bit stir crazy at times. But rather than the sometimes solitary task of providing for his family, his life seemed to immediately change to center around protecting Talitha.