Botanicaust

by Linsey, Tam

  His hope for Josef. Gone.

  She wanted to comfort him. But there was no comfort. She wished she believed in his God so she could offer the platitudes of his religion. The little song she often sang to herself came to her mind, but her vocal cords were too tight to emit a sound. It wouldn’t mean anything to him, anyway. After a long period of silence, she turned to leave him alone, but he reached out an arm and pulled her against him to rest his chin on her head.

  In spite of her exhaustion, of the nearly unbearable heat in her skin, the sadness in him overwhelmed her. “My heart hurts,” she said against his chest, not knowing the word for sad.

  He only nodded against her hair and squeezed her tighter.

  A strange repetitive sound made Levi’s eyes spring open to darkness. Clouds had rolled in with the sunset, obliterating any light from the stars and moon. The evening breeze had grown into a nighttime howl, forcing the travelers to hunker in the lee of some rocks and shrubs near the spring. But the sound of branches rattling was not what had awakened him.

  Thwok thwok thwok thwok… Dust and leaves pelted the camp from the opposite direction of the wind. Thwok thwok… He sat up. Above them, a beam of light wandered through the airborne debris, following the road.

  “Levi,” Tula clutched him beneath the blanket they shared. She struggled to sit up, weak and frail.

  The beam meandered over the curve of the switchback and caught the edge of the yellow robe where the twins slept. The children clutched each other in terror, faces raised to the sky. The light wavered, halted, returned to focus on the helpless figures of the girls.

  The unmistakable sound of a gunshot ricocheted through the air.

  Levi lurched for the children, lifting each around the waist. He twisted and rolled into the ditch. Landing on his feet, he pelted down the ravine. Behind him, the searchlight panned over the camp again. He heard Tula shouting to the other woman. Where were they?

  Glancing over his shoulder into the darkness, he yelled, “Tula!” The uneven ditch fell out beneath him, sending him flying. The girls tumbled from his grasp as his face slammed into the rock wall of the gully.

  Blinking dirt from his eyes, he rolled onto his back. Heat rolled down his forehead into his eyes. Blood. Another shot echoed against the rocks. Behind him, a mere shadow in the ambient glow of the searchlight, Tula wavered at the edge of the drop into the gully. “Tula!” he screamed again, jack knifing forward.

  The girls whimpered. Caught in the middle, he struggled to remember a word in Tula’s language. “Run! Run!” He hoped they understood.

  Gaining his feet, he scrambled back up the cut, feet splashing in the runnel of water from the spring. Tula lay gasping at the edge. Was she shot? “Tula, get up. Come on! You have to move!” Beyond the camp, the searchlight tracked the other Blattvolk woman down the mountain path. As the helpless woman hobbled through the debris filled air, the sheer lab coat billowed out behind her like a ghost. Two quick blasts from the Fosselite craft and she dropped, rolling to a stop at a cluster of scrub oak. Levi’s racing heart dropped into his stomach. He and Tula were next.

  He slung Tula over his shoulder. The light on the road left the fallen Blattvolk, wobbled, then strafed back toward the camp. Levi plunged into the ditch. This time he landed off balance and both knees nearly gave out. Arrows of fire pierced both legs as he charged down the cut. His breath tore his throat. Blinking away the blood dripping into his eyes, he tried to watch the ground, but the darkness was complete in the ditch’s depths.

  The light circled the camp before sliding into the gully. He couldn’t outrun them. His legs slowed to a trembling stumble as he felt for footing.

  “Here! Stop!” He almost missed the words over his own ragged breathing. Small hands clawed at his ankles, nearly tripping him. He dropped to his knees. A tangle of tree roots and caked earth cascaded down the wall of the ravine. At the bottom, four small hands beckoned. Shoving Tula beneath the overhang, he shimmied in after her. Silt rained down on his head. For a brief second he worried their hideout might collapse.

  The metallic scent of dry dirt filled his nostrils in the absolute blackness of the tiny cave. He hoped he was all the way inside. There was only room for him to curl his aching knees around the miscellaneous body parts already occupying the space.

  Outside, the noise of pursuit grew loud, the percussions of the Fosselite craft sending shock waves of dirt raining down onto them. Motes of light filtered into their shelter through a few gaps in the roots. Levi saw he was curled in a semi-fetal position around the twins who sat with their backs to the wall. Small as they were, they had to duck their heads to fit beneath the sharp, sloping ceiling. Draped across their knees, Tula remained unconscious. They had their arms over her, pulling her close to make room for him.

  As he lay barely able to breathe, each child reached over Tula and put a hand on him, including him in their knot of protection.

  Limbs cramped and numb from a night of unnatural stillness, Levi rolled from the cave at the first light of morning. The Fosselite search had moved on some time ago, but none of the escapees seemed inclined to take any chances. Tula had awakened during the night, and assured him the Fosselites would not brave the sun. He hoped that was true; he could not remain in the stuffy cave any longer.

  He sucked in mouthfuls of clear, cool air. After stretching to regain mobility in his limbs, he reached beneath the root wall and helped Tula emerge into the light. The twins were more resilient, scampering out like little mice darting from a hole in the barn wall. They crouched at the entrance, scanning the sky as well as up and down the gully.

  Levi looked around and gasped. The ravine dropped off sharply a few steps from their shelter, plunging to a snaggle of rocks thirty feet below. He and Tula would have fallen to their deaths if not for the twins.

  The children knelt at the stream and scooped water into their mouths. Frail green limbs, knobby spines, sparse, close-cropped hair. His people would see them as demons. He saw two starving little girls. Girls who had risked their hiding place and their lives to save him and Tula.

  On aching knees and bruised feet, he joined them at the trickling water. He knelt downstream and scooped a drink for himself. The girls watched him. Turning to them, he pointed to his chest. “Levi.”

  Glancing at each other, the children seemed to communicate without words. Then they each introduced themselves. “Eily.” “Ana.”

  He pointed at Tula. “Tula.”

  They nodded, eyes on the woman sitting and clutching her knees at the cave entrance. Seeing that Tula had not moved, Levi crawled over. Her skin burned, yet goose pimples prickled her naked arms and legs.

  “Are you doing any better?” he asked.

  She put on a smile and nodded, but he knew she only did to keep him from worrying. But she did manage to gain her feet, to drink from the stream, to croak out a “thank you” to the twins when they each hooked an arm to help her up the gully.

  Levi watched them navigate the climb ahead. If one of them tripped and started to fall, he would be there to catch them. Three Blattvolk who were not abominations.

  Tula huddled beneath the yellow robe Levi draped about her, but couldn’t get warm. They’d spent most of the morning climbing to the camp. Her muscles burned by the time they reached the pipe, and a shivering rain had begun. The twins had pulled the microfiber blanket over their heads in a communal hood. Levi wore only the shorts and sleeveless top the Fosselites had given him. His feet were a wreck, the slippers in bloody shreds. Stripping them off, he donned the too-small sandals Tula had given him at the outset of the journey.

  He shouldered the pack, and Tula was grateful the Fosselites hadn’t taken it last night. They still had water bottles, the knife, and whatever else Levi had procured from Dr. Kaneka. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought of the doctor, the bold red of his sclera as he’d looked down at her on the lab table with Vitus’s name on his lips.

  She swayed a bit, and Levi was immediately at her side,
arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “Can you go on?”

  “We must.” She surveyed the zigzagging road behind them. “They look again tonight.”

  “How far will they chase us?”

  With a shrug, she looked into his eyes. She had no idea what kind of range the Fosselites had. Her people always went to the mountain to trade, not the other way around. The Fosselites were limited to nighttime searches, but how determined were they to catch her? “They think I go back to Protectorate to say things they do. Bad things they want … not show. “

  He nodded. “A secret.”

  “Secret.” She rolled the word around her tongue. “Yes. Dr. Kaneka say Vitus know. How many know, I not sure. People like me, never learn secret.”

  “What were they doing to you? To all of you?” He glanced at the twins.

  He seemed to have taken to them, and that made her happy. Almost as happy as being with him, no matter the circumstances. The chemical overload and untested fungi could kill her any time.

  She thought of how to phrase the information from Dr. Kaneka into Levi’s language. “Is … like cannibal. Use us to make medicine. For Fosselite head crazy.”

  Levi shuddered and pulled her closer. “They are abominations.”

  Abominations. He’d used that word many times to describe the Haldanians. Her. People who forced their ways upon others. Now, she understood the meaning. She shuddered.

  Together, they limped onto the road and stood in a line gazing down the incline. Where Greta had fallen, only a dark spot of earth remained. The girls were oblivious to what had happened, but halted when Levi stopped at the spot and folded his hands in prayer. “God, grant her mercy. Take her into your loving care. For yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

  Next to him, the girls followed with, “Amen.” Praying with Blattvolk. Although he’d determined he would protect these people in his care, he hadn’t actually hoped they could find salvation. He looked into two sets of sincere eyes and his heart swelled. “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” he whispered.

  They hadn’t reached the base of the mountain when the cloudy sky parted enough to allow a flash of golden sunset above the snowy peaks. Tula could barely lift her feet off the ground. The girls insisted on helping her, stumbling under her weight. Levi worried they might lose their footing and tumble down the steep path.

  Finally, he called a halt at a small plateau where the road leveled out. He’d hoped to reach another water source, but the dry mountainside yielded nothing. The few water bottles they had were nearly empty, with four of them drinking. A dry ditch pitched off the top edge of the pavement toward some overgrown footpaths cut into the hill. From his vantage, he detected the rectangular remnants of old buildings along the main trail. The way looked steep, and difficult, but perhaps they’d find water.

  But he didn’t think Tula would be strong enough to keep going. Not in the darkness. Tonight they had to stop, to hide. In the morning they could veer from the main road. For tonight, he could construct a makeshift screen out of scrub oak and yuvee to hide them from sight while they rested. “We’ll stop here.”

  The twins seemed relieved. They let go of Tula and wandered to the nearby husk of an automobile to investigate.

  Gasping for breath, Tula shook her head. “Not good.”

  “It’s almost dark. We have to rest. To find shelter from the Fosselites.”

  “Fosselites see … night like day.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll look like brush and rocks.” He started to hack at the limbs of the shrubs with the knife.

  “They see through!”

  “Remember how we hid from the Blat … the Haldanian search party? We’ll do that again.”

  “No.” Tula seemed on the verge of tears, her voice higher, the sentences choked off as if one word required too much effort. “Is different. Fosselites search night. Have … have…” She struggled with the words.

  “Tula.” He clasped both her arms and looked into her teary eyes. The pupils were the size of dinner plates and could not focus on him. Her skin had exchanged burning heat for cold and clammy. “I will keep you safe.”

  She shook her head, gasping. Swaying in his grasp, she clutched his forearms for support. “Not safe. Fosselites see hot. Body hot. You, me, children. Need rock hide.”

  Levi thought of the red eyes of the Fosselites. How the lights were so dim inside the compound. Had the Fosselites so altered themselves they functioned differently? “We need a cave?” His heart hammered so hard his vision shook. He glanced around the plateau. There were no caves he could see. The light was fading fast.

  In panic, he grabbed Tula’s arm and shouted to the girls. “Let’s move!”

  Since leaving the mountain, Tula had been fighting off hallucinations unlike any she’d had before. Chasms opened up before her feet, amorphous colors corkscrewed from the cloudy sky to skewer her, the rocks bulged with leering faces. Physical contact helped ground her, and she was thankful the girls anchored her on both sides.

  When Levi announced they’d stop, the twins let go, and Tula had to scrape up every microgram of willpower to keep focused. Swaying in the brutal push of a non-existent gale, she fought for breath to speak. They could not stop until they found shelter. The Fosselites had night scopes, thermographic trackers, and who knew what else. Mo had used a few such devices on the rare night mission when cannibal bands ranged too close to the edges of the Burn.

  They needed something dense to shield them. More than the leaves and twigs Levi proposed.

  Once Levi understood, he dragged her down a steep cut through the brush. The dark landscape at her feet pulsed purple in spots where some mote of setting sun penetrated the shrubbery. She blinked the illusion away. Stay alert. A pounding in her ears reminded her of the helicopter blades, and she glanced behind her, up the direction they’d come. Nothing but a yellow trail curling up the mountain like a cryptic word of warning. The pounding was only the beating of her heart.

  At her heels, the girls plowed through the brush. Levi stopped abruptly in front of her. Glad to stop, she rested her hands on her knees and half bent over. If she focused on the ground, things seemed more normal.

  Then Levi was gone. “Levi?”

  The thunk of helicopter blades started in the distance. No mistaking it. The sound chopped against the side of the mountain as if the noise alone might shake the escapees loose.

  The brush in front of her moved, and Levi poked his head up from a ditch or a hole. “Down here.”

  The twins pushed past her and over the edge of some sort of wall. She accepted Levi’s hand and lowered herself into a rectangular concrete area filled with old pipes, bits of corroded plastic, and other detritus. He led her to a huge rusty container. The hinged lid had fallen askew, leaving a metal cave. “Will this protect you?” he asked.

  She touched the three-centimeter thick walls. The metal flaked a little, but seemed intact. “Yes.”

  “Get in.” He urged her into the box. She sat with her hands wrapped around her knees. Both girls joined her, taking up the remaining room. Even so, she worried a hand or foot might show enough to alert the search parties.

  Levi squatted in front of her, a solid spot against the shadows of full night. She tried to squeeze tighter, to make more room. The beating of the helicopter grew louder. Pressing his lips to hers, he caressed her face. “Don’t move, Tula. God keep you safe.”

  It took her a moment to realize he was gone. “Levi?” At first her voice was soft, a whisper to avoid detection. Then it rose to a wail. “Levi! Leeeeeviiiiiii!”

  A small hand covered her mouth, and Tula could only sob.

  Levi catapulted over the edge of the old foundation and crashed through the brush. He planned on being as far from Tula and the girls as possible when captured. Tula’s heart-wrenching wail cut off abruptly. He fumbled, reminded himself the girls had probably quieted her, and kept running. They’d keep each other safe.

>   In the sky, two disparate lights flashed on and off the hills. They’d doubled their efforts.

  Levi doubled his.

  He dropped into another rectangular hole. Clouds blocked most of the sky, allowing only a handful of stars to give light. His feet crunched over uneven bits of old plastic and metal, but nothing large enough to shield him. He swung up over the opposite edge and hurdled a row of boulders lining what had once been a driveway.

  The searchlights reached the plateau. They circled the flat area, sometimes on, sometimes off, as if they might surprise their prey with sudden light. One light continued along the road while the other changed course toward the rotten foundations. Lowering his head, Levi plowed through the scrub oak and nearly sprawled face first on a tumble of bricks. In the darkness, the lumpy shape of a fallen chimney gave him a flare of hope.

  He searched for the hearth opening, found the depression where a fire would be laid. Only a shallow, metal-lined box. Not a real fireplace. No way to fit.

  He squinted into the darkness. Running blind would get him nowhere. But one direction was as good as another at this point. Turning left, he picked his way through the bricks. The ground beneath one foot flexed, making a metallic popping sound. Another step, and the metal popped again.

  Crouching, he felt along the surface; his hands traced the regular pattern of corrugated aluminum. Several of the houses back home had roofs like this from before the Botanicaust. Skimming fingers over the metal, he located an edge buried in dirt. If he could only get under it …

  As he searched for a grip to pry the sheet loose, he watched the searchlight meander closer. How far away could they see him? One corner of the aluminum curled upward, out of the soil and Levi strained to pull it free with all his strength, all his hope. The metal had been buried a long time, and the earth did not want to give up its hold. Slipping his hand into a pocket in the backpack, he located the knife. He forced the blade between the sheet and the dirt, loosening the curl enough to get his fingers underneath. In a shower of sand, the sheet loosed halfway.