by Lynda Engler
Malcolm sent two of the tribe’s men, Kaedo and Garith, out to scout the area. Kaedo was three years older than Malcolm and was also his best friend. He was also Maxi’s father. Garith was mated to Macy and they had a five year old boy, who looked a lot older than five. It had taken Isabella some time to remember everyone’s names and learn the relationships between members of the group.
Isabella was glad when Kaedo and Garith returned with an “all clear,” because she was hot and utterly exhausted. She had never experienced blazing hot sunshine before, much less this amount of humidity. And as the endless miles piled up, her swollen and blistered feet ached all the way to her hips.
“We’ll make camp here for the night,” said Malcolm, who didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the heat and suffocating humidity. “We need to set up our tents and gather wood for a fire before it gets dark.”
Shia ran to her father and Isabella, jumping up and down like a jack rabbit. “Can we swim in the creek, Papa? Please?” Malcolm smiled and nodded and Shia and the two little boys ran into the shallow water, their little shrieks of laughter bouncing and echoing along the banks of the stream.
The three tents went up quickly. Setting them up and tearing them down every night and day had made efficient nomads of the mutants. Soon the rest of the tribe joined the little ones for a bath and a swim, before they would need to make the campfire and get food ready for the evening meal.
Isabella was uneasy about going in the water. It was full of chemicals and who knew what else, but she desperately needed a bath. Well, no point in keeping safe anymore – she was part of the Outside world now. I might as well get used to it, she thought. She pulled herself together, gritted her teeth and got ready to go into the polluted creek.
Just before stepping into the cool water she shouted to the three little ones, “Remember, don’t drink the water!” The purification tablets they had to clean their drinking water now would keep them healthier, at least until they ran out.
The sandy bottom was clearly visible near the edge, but as Isabella waded farther into the slow moving stream, sand and silt churned from the bottom, clouding the water. Isabella felt something slimy under her right foot and let out a shriek. “Eek! What was that?”
She almost ran out of the creek but Malcolm came up close to her and stayed her with his large hands on her hips. “It’s just an old branch, Belle. Nothing to worry about.”
“But it’s slippery and disgusting. I thought it was a snake!”
Malcolm was clearly trying hard not to laugh at her, but she could see his eyes smiling.
Her toe hit a stone on the bottom and she almost lost her balance, but once again, Malcolm was there to steady her.
Malcolm crouched down, the water covering his entire frame and pulled off his shirt and shorts. He wrung them out before scrubbing his skin with fine sand from the stream bottom. Isabella followed his example, awkwardly removing her clothing in the water, aware that the water only provided a small amount of privacy. She rinsed her body quickly before wading out onto the rocky riverbank as skillfully as she could. Her naked body began to shiver as a cool evening breeze swirled in out of nowhere. Isabella grabbed a towel she had left on a large rock and wrapped it around her torso, conscious of her nudity, but trying not to show the group that she was nervous and self-conscious.
She ducked into the yellow tent to get dressed. The tent was large enough for five people to sleep in, but not quite tall enough to stand upright, so she dressed half bent over.
She wondered if Malcolm would have preferred to swim longer, but he followed her out and got dried and dressed as well. It would take her time to acclimate to this alien environment.
Clean and wearing fresh clothes, Isabella felt much better and she left the tent to see what she could do to help get tonight’s camp set up. The older teens were still in the water with their children. Isabella watched from the riverbank. It had taken six days but she had finally gotten the family groupings in the tribe straight. The red-headed five-year-old boy belonged to Macy and Garith, and the brown-haired boy to Milora and Guy. Kaedo was the oldest and his son Maxi was ten. Isabella didn’t know much about Clay or Kalla, or anything about who their parents were. All of the younger children looked and acted much older than their biological years, and obviously matured much faster than shelter people.
“Malcolm! Come look here!” shouted Clay from the trees. He and Kalla had begun exploring the edge of the woods after bathing.
Isabella followed her new mate to the forest’s edge where they had heard the boy’s call. Clay stood next to an extinguished campfire, his webbed fingers splayed above the wood.
“Hasn’t been out long,” remarked Malcolm.
“How do you know?” asked Isabella, unsure and inexperienced with just about everything Outside.
“An old fire burns down to coal. This one’s half burnt firewood. And the musky smell of smoke and pine tells me it was put out only a few hours ago,” replied the tribal leader.
“So it didn’t just burn down on its own?”
“No. Someone quenched it with water,” said Malcolm.
“Oh.” Isabella had a lot to learn about living in the woods.
Clay and Kalla were expert trackers. Isabella still couldn’t get over the fact that they were only eleven, because they looked more like her own sibs had at fourteen. Malcolm and Isabella followed the two trackers along a trail of broken branches and irregular footprints leading through the trees. She saw one large set of prints but mixed in were other prints made by smaller feet. Isabella wondered who they were following, but was reluctant to ask. And if the rest of the group knew, they hadn’t let on. Other than Malcolm, the others weren’t giving her much information about anything. Guess it’s going to take some time yet before I’m part of the group, she thought wistfully. Six days wasn’t enough time for this group to truly trust her, a shelter-girl. It was as if she was something straight out of mythology and they could not understand why she would chose to be with them.
Clay followed the prints into some thick branches, until they ended at the rocky opening of a cave. Silently, Malcolm motioned for Clay to take a position of caution at the left side of the cave entrance, while he stood at the right. He pushed Kalla and Isabella behind his body, away from anything that might emerge from the shadowy hollow.
Malcolm cautiously poked his head around the rocks and then entered slowly. The damp, dark and uninviting cave smelled of animal urine and mold. Isabella could actually smell it from her position outside the cave and around the corner.
Hearing and seeing nothing, Malcolm beamed his new flashlight into the cave, the illumination casting eerie shadows that moved like ghosts upon the walls. “Is anyone here?” His words echoed deep into the cavernous interior.
Isabella held her breath waiting for a reply. She knew the cave was inhabited, but by whom, or what? As a chill ran the length of her spine, she wasn’t sure she wanted her question answered.
As the four of them stood there, a teenage girl appeared from deeper inside the cave. She carried a toddler, his legs wrapped firmly around her waist and his small hands clutched her hair. A girl, a little taller than Shia, peaked out from behind her legs. She clutched an orange cat tightly in her arms.
“Don’t hurt my children,” pleaded the obviously terrified young mother. “Please, just let us leave.” Malcolm’s group stood between them and the freedom of the forest.
“How many more in your tribe?” Malcolm asked, searching the cave with eyes that saw better in the dim light than Isabella’s. He kept his flashlight focused on the mother and children.
The young woman coughed but otherwise stood trancelike, a blank stare her only response. The striped cat meowed pitifully in her daughter’s arms and the young boy began to cry.
The young woman was obviously shell-shocked. Isabella knew that the intense fear in this young woman’s eyes couldn’t merely be because four strangers had found her cave. Something had terrified her.
Malcolm handed the flashlight to Clay and put out both hands, palms up to show her he was not a threat. “I am Malcolm. This is Isabella and these are my friends Clay and Kalla. We won’t hurt you.”
* * *
The atmosphere in the Bellardini compound had been funereal since Isabella had left. No one knew what to say or do. Even Abigail gave up her bossiness of her sibs. They all knew that Isabella had walked off to her death. Maybe not right away, but eventually she would fall prey to the toxins in the outside world. Her body would fail and she would die an unimaginably horrible death, if she was lucky, or worse if she wasn’t. The family was in mourning. She might as well be dead already.
Luke broke the overwhelming silence on the third night after her departure with an awkward laugh that sounded nothing like his usual almost childlike giggle. “Well I think she is stupid. Just an odd, stupid girl! She deserves whatever she gets.”
“Luke!” gasped Mari. “I can’t believe you think that way.”
“But Mother, you all think it too. I’m just the only one who’s got the guts to say it out loud.”
“That could not be further from the truth, Luke,” interjected his grandmother. “We don’t think that at all. I am so very sad that Isabella chose to leave us, but I understand why. I can’t figure out why those mutants fascinated her so much, but I appreciate her feelings. She fell in love with that strange boy. Love is not always explainable, but it is comprehensible.” A tear trickled down her right cheek and landed on the needlework in her lap.
Isabella’s mother squeezed the old woman’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. Her brown hair was curly, like Isabella’s, but cut short and tucked behind both ears. When she leaned down to speak to her mother, the left side came free and dangled in her face. “Mother, I miss her more than anyone can imagine. There hasn’t been a single day since I gave birth to that child that she was more than one room away from me.” She choked on the words, hardly able to get them out. “Now she is gone.”
Granmama stood up and put aside her needlework. She gathered her youngest daughter to herself and the two women cried all over each other.
Shaking his head, Luke just stared at them both and then glared at his own mother, their grandfather and the rest of the family. Wrinkling his nose, he blurted out, “You’re all nuts! She is just a stupid girl, running off like that. Love! What a joke. She’ll die out there. I don’t even want to call her my sister anymore. She has no sense at all to do this!”
His grandmother looked him in the eye in such a strange way, as if she knew something but wasn’t sharing. It made him even angrier and he scowled as he turned to leave.
“Things aren’t always the way they seem,” his grandmother said to Luke’s retreating back as he stormed out of the great room.
* * *
The young woman introduced herself to them as Chloe, and then led them deeper into her cave. The cave was full of cats; small cats, big fluffy cats, short-haired cats. Isabella had seen cats in pictures but they had never had any pets in their compound. So many cats!
The ammonia smell of urine got stronger as they walked further into the cave. The smell permeated the air and Isabella had a hard time breathing. Her eyes watered and her nostrils stung. Kalla gasped behind her and Chloe coughed.
By the light of their flashlight, they saw a sleeping platform arranged at the back for the children. A thin, dying shaft of light shone down from a hole in the cave’s ceiling. Tattered blankets, dingy with age, were arranged on a natural ledge in the rock wall. Chloe arranged the bedding as best she could and laid the sleeping toddler on the make-shift bed and indicated to her daughter to join him.
“Yes Mommy,” whispered the little girl with a sleepy smile. The orange cat waited for her to get settled under the covers and then curled up at her feet.
Chloe led the tribe members back toward the front of the cave to sit away from the sleeping children. The earth was damp under Isabella’s butt.
Suddenly Chloe began to cough convulsively. She grasped her chest as the uncontrollable fit of coughing continued. Finally she began to cough up blood. Isabella knelt by her side. “Malcolm, she’s sick! What’s wrong with her?” Isabella’s eyes pleaded to help the girl.
“It’s the wasting disease,” said Malcolm matter-of-factly. “I watched it kill my father. There isn’t anything we can do for her, Belle. It’s rare for this sickness to attack someone so young, but it’s not unheard of,” said Malcolm sadly.
“I’ll be alright,” Chloe said once the hacking subsided. “These coughing fits happen all the time.” Exhausted, Chloe wiped blood from her chin and slumped lower to the ground, but didn’t lie down.
Malcolm nodded, acknowledging he understood. “Is this how the others of your tribe died? Was it the wasting disease? I’ve seen entire tribes devastated by it back in Ewr.”
“No,” said Chloe. “It was the Eaters.”
“Eaters?” asked Malcolm, not understanding what she meant.
“They killed them all. They attacked us as we traveled. Me and my kids – we got away,” Chloe struggled to explain through more coughing. “I’ve lived in this cave with them ever since. And the cats.”
“What are the Eaters and why did they kill your tribe?” asked Isabella, realizing how little she knew about the Outside world but needing to learn and understand as much of it as she could.
Chloe’s hands shook as she answered. “They are the old ones – the ones who were here during the war. They were poisoned but never died. The Eaters are mindless, gray-skinned, no longer human creatures. They are soulless, evil things.”
“How could they be over fifty years old and haven’t died?” Malcolm sounded astonished. In his world, people just didn’t live that long. Isabella felt a little better knowing that her husband had never heard of the Eaters either. For once, the tribe was just as in the dark about something out here as she was.
The young girl shook her head. “It’s said that they were young when the weapons were released, maybe even children. Their numbers are few but they’re impossibly strong. It doesn’t take many to overpower a whole tribe. Their strength is inhuman. They’re hideous beasts with thick skin; their eyes are all white. I think they are blind but they move and strike like tigers. We defended with clubs and blades and arrows, but they couldn’t be killed. They just kept on coming. Once they get you, they tear and gnaw at your flesh with their teeth and fingers, eating you before you are even dead.”
Kalla gasped and a visible shudder ran up her spine. Clay gathered her in his arms, as if to protect her from the hideous creatures Chloe described.
Isabella’s head swam and her stomach lurched and she quickly put her hand over her mouth. A wave of nausea overtook her. She ran to the mouth of the cave as her stomach emptied itself all over the rocks at her feet.
After the nausea had passed, she collected herself as best she could. It was dark outside and Isabella had to pick her way back to the group, her hands on the rock above her, protecting her head and assisting her in the short walk back. As she rejoined the group, she heard Malcolm asking, “Where did these Eaters go after attacking your tribe?”
“I don’t know. They were still eating my tribe when I got out of there with my kids. I ran and ran for hours until I found this cave.” The young girl’s shoulders sagged with the exhaustion of telling her story.
Isabella was disgusted at herself. This girl had lived through a nightmare and just listening to her story made her get physically ill. Yet this young girl, sick and with two young children, had survived out here alone. She felt small. She had considered herself to be a woman until now. But she was just a child who had lived a privileged life compared to everyone Outside. Chloe began to sob. Isabella sat down next to her and put her arm around her shoulders to comfort her
, or maybe it was to make herself feel better, she wasn’t really sure.
Isabella held Chloe while she cried and coughed.
Eventually, Chloe snapped out of it and pushed the tears off her face. She turned to Isabella and said, “I’m sorry I upset you. You look hale and hearty, no mutations that I can see. Why?”
“I’m not a mutant,” replied Isabella. “But neither are you! You are just a new kind of human.”
“New?”
“Yes, new humans that live short lives and bear children young so that generations evolve faster, making all of you more adapted to the world as it is now.”
“Not adapted enough that I’m not dying,” Chloe said as once again coughs racked her entire body. When she stopped and caught her breath, she continued. “I won’t live another year. I won’t live long enough to raise my kids. They aren’t sick, but they’ll be dead anyway with no one to take care of them.”
“You could join with us,” suggested Kalla.
Chloe shook her head. “You’ll only catch the wasting disease if you haven’t already.”
Malcolm interrupted. “From what’s been told to me, no one knows if it’s contagious. Sometimes it’s the whole tribe that gets it; other times only one or two people.”
No one spoke for a few minutes. There were so many things to consider. Left alone, Chloe would die. Without a mother to take care of them, her children would too. If Chloe were allowed to come with them, and the wasting disease was contagious, she could infect their whole tribe.
Chloe offered up the most obvious, but painful solution. “Take my children into your tribe.”
“And leave you behind?” gasped Isabella, looking toward the rear of the cave where the children slept.