by Beaman, Sara
When his face stopped feeling like it was someone else’s skin, he went back inside to find Beck running up and down the hall shouting for him. He looked like he’d run all the way upstairs.
“Cal Halcyon just stopped me on my way back from town!”
“Let me guess,” Scout said. “Hey son, blah-blah-blah, God loves me better than you, blah-blah-blah, batteries are for straight people.”
“The kid is missing, the boy. They’re searching for him. Look, I know we’re mortal enemies and all, but he’s asking for our help. He wants us to go check the north paths, make sure the kid isn’t near the forest.”
Scout shoved into his shoes, grabbed a jacket, and headed out with Beck. It wasn’t the sort of thing you even let yourself put through a thought process.
Outside, Scout and Beck turned north. Past the main ring of buildings was a band of field; and past that was the steadily advancing forest-line. With the exception of two maintained pathways that led back to Thorn Creek, passage through the forest was not advised.
“Where do you want to start looking?” Beck asked.
“I’m going to head down to the south path. Where those construction materials are.”
“Cal already looked there, they said. He asked us to go north.”
Scout frowned and shook his head. “I swear I thought I saw something down there, when I was up on the roof. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
“Sure. If I find him, I’ll make an owl call.” Beck was convinced he could mimic wildlife.
Scout said, “If I hear a cat chewing broken glass, I’ll come running.”
Beck gave him the finger and peeled off north. Scout circled down towards the cement pipe he’d seen from the roof. The route passed by his shriveled wildflower garden, which still made his head ache. Maybe he’d plant some seeds next spring.
The pipes, probably intended for sewage or drainage repairs, had been abandoned during the Collapse. They had a diameter of just over sixty inches, big enough for a grown man to take shelter in. When he was close enough, Scout said, “Ahoy the pipe!”
The only response he got was a loud, wet sniffle.
“Sampson? It’s Scout. Do you remember me?”
A couple seconds later, he heard Sampson say, “Scar.”
“That’s right, the guy with the scar. Is it okay if I come in?” He walked to the front of the pipe and leaned into the mouth of it.
A lot of dirt and sediment had settled inside but it was still the perfect bolt-hole for a kid. Sampson was crouched just past light’s reach. When Scout’s eyesight adjusted, he saw that what he first took for grime was actually a fresh bloody nose.
“Looks like someone did a number on you,” Scout said casually. “It hurt much?”
Sampson was staring at Scout’s scar. He blinked and said, “You weren’t supposed to find me.”
“I’m pretty good at finding things.”
“But…” Sampson’s face screwed up in confusion. “They said you weren’t. Does that mean it’s over? I can come out now?”
“Um… Sure, you can go home. It looks mighty cold in there.”
“It is,” Sampson said. “And there are spiders. I don’t like spiders.”
“Me neither. Come on, then.”
Scout stepped back. Sampson crawled to the edge of the pipe on all fours. When he stood, Scout brushed off the back of the boy’s patched ski jacket.
“Is Uncle Anders okay? You’re not mad at him for going upstairs?” Sampson asked.
The hell?
“No…. I’m not mad.”
Sampson wiped at his nose, expecting to see snot, and then looked resigned when he saw blood. Scout didn’t have much experience with kids, but such a tired reaction towards your own injury didn’t seem too normal.
Scout went down on one knee so that they were eye level. He said, hazarding a guess, “Your granddad got mad at you, huh?”
“I didn’t want to hide,” the boy said. “And my daddy didn’t want me to hide, but I was scared Grandpa would get mad at him, so I said I’d hide, and—but—and they said—” His eyes went round. “They said I shouldn’t say any a’this to you.”
The pieces fell into place like the click of a sprung trap. Upstairs. Anders. Shit. “It’s okay, Sampson. I’m not mad. How about we just pretend that you didn’t say anything to me at all? Is that alright?”
Sampson gave the ground a downcast nod.
“Come on, then. I’ll take you back home.”
Scout was about to get up when, to his considerable surprise, the boy wrapped his arms around Scout’s neck.
Scout sat there awkwardly until realizing that Sampson was waiting to be picked up.
So Scout picked Sampson up and started back towards the Park. It had begun to drizzle again, so Sampson wriggled for a minute to get comfortable, and then just sort of splayed over Scout’s shoulder like a really heavy blanket. Scout felt a little dazed by the trust.
In a few minutes, they were in sight of the central clearing. Scout might have expected the Halcyons to be out searching, except that would have presupposed they really believed there was something to search for.
As it was, Cal stood by the remains of the bandstand, hat in hands. By the time Scout was close enough to make out his expression it was one of grandfatherly concern.
Scout said, “Look who I found. I thought I’d seen a blue coat earlier, when I was on the roof.”
“Thank God,” Cal said, and pulled Sampson off Scout’s shoulder. He transferred the boy to his own shoulder with only a token glance at the boy’s face. “My, my. Looks like someone’s got a bloody nose. How did that happen, Sampson?”
“I fell, Sir,” Sampson whispered.
“Well, now, that’s the sort of things boys do,” Cal said. “Scout, you’ll have to come back to my place for a cup of coffee. Least I can do to thank you. It’s mighty kind of you to help us out, given our present tensions.”
“Thanks anyway, Cal, but I’m exhausted. I’ve been fighting off a cold. Think I’ll just head back and take a nap. You’ll let Beck and the others know that we found Sampson?”
“We’ve got some soup back at my place. I’d put my wife up against any other cook you can name. Real chicken rice.”
Scout channeled Beck and produced an actual smile. “I’m really ready for that nap. Take care, Cal.”
He let the smile drop once his back was to Cal. He made himself count off his footsteps to keep from hurrying.
The moment the tarp swished down behind him, Scout took off at a run.
****
Either Anders had gotten partial directions from Izza, or else he was an unnaturally clever young man. He made it as far as the fifth floor before taking a painfully wrong turn.
There was only one functioning staircase to the penthouse—a maintenance area in the northwest corner. The other stairways were rigged with the worst traps Scout had in his arsenal. He figured that anyone who made it that far had obviously gotten the hint and clearly meant Scout wrong.
Anders had triggered a tripwire that brought down a net of harvested strangle runner. Beck refreshed the trap often with a jelly made from the acidic sap.
Anders was curled under the net. He wasn’t moving or making a sound, but there were tears on his young face. Shiny, keloid blisters were already rising along his exposed arms.
It was the tears that got to Scout. That and being relieved that Anders wasn’t presently sneaking outside with a fat, full sack.
Scout said, “You going to give me any trouble if I let you out?”
“No. I promise. Please help me.” The young man was in enough pain that each word broke into a stutter.
The strangle runner net was assembled in patches held together by knots of twine. All it took was a switchblade to cut the sections free. Scout did that carefully, and placed each swath aside.
When the net was gone, Anders still hadn’t moved. His jaw was clenched so tight that Scout expected him to spit enamel chips next time he
spoke.
Scout crouched down. “Listen to me. You’ve got gel all over your clothing, and you’ve got some nasty burns. I can take you upstairs and give you a paste that will help. Maybe some painkillers. It’s going to scar, though. No help for that.”
“My fault,” Anders said on a sharp exhale.
“That’s pretty clear, yeah. Are you ready to get up?”
He showed Anders how to get past the rest of the trip wires on the stairway, pausing after every difficult maneuver to shine the flashlight on Anders’ battered work boots so he could see where he stepped.
As they approached the sixth floor, the darkness lightened into a hazy dimness.
“Welcome to the penthouse,” Scout said.
“Hurts,” Anders breathed.
“We’re almost there.”
Scout led him into the infirmary—an office stripped bare and stocked with medical supplies. It had an exterior window. Outside, the drizzle had turned into a fall of long, gray raindrops, but there was still enough light to see by. Scout was able to make out all the shiny liquid patches on Anders’ jeans and jacket.
“Damn,” Scout said. “Be careful getting out of those clothes. Keep them away from your eyes and mouth, or any cuts. You don’t want to get that stuff in an open wound.”
Anders gave the room an uncomfortable look, and began to unbutton his shirt.
Scout went over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of white vinegar and a sealed plastic tub filled with a speckled red paste. When he popped the lid off the paste, the smell made his mouth water.
He said, “It’s made from meat tenderizer. Works great on insect bites too. My mom used to use it on hornet stings when I was a kid.”
Anders hissed in pain. Scout turned, saw a naked man, and turned back to the cabinet. He blushed and swore a little in his head. Then he forced himself to turn back.
Anders wasn’t wearing any underwear. He’d apparently tried to hold his pants in front of him for modesty, and got a fresh strangle runner burn on his bare thigh. Anders dropped the pants but turned his back to Scout.
Scout’s own embarrassment faded until he realized what he was looking at.
The young man’s back was covered in old injuries—old beatings, old cuts, some so bad they were nearly lash marks. He had fresh bruises over one of his kidneys, and something that might have been a cigarette burn on one shoulder blade.
“Here,” Scout said tonelessly, and passed Anders a hand towel. It wasn’t much, but it covered Anders’ lap. Anders sat down in a leather padded chair Scout nodded at.
Scout pulled a blister pack from the cabinet. He popped a solid caplet through the foil and handed it to Anders. “For the pain. Need some water?”
Anders shook his head and swallowed the pill dry.
Scout grabbed a clean strip of cloth from the cabinet and soaked it with vinegar solution. “We need to get the sap off first, then we’ll deal with the burns. It’s going to hurt.”
“I’m ready.”
It took Scout upwards of five minutes to remove the sticky residue. Anders had it on his cheek, one ear, the side of his neck, and up and down both arms. It was an unusual experience; strange enough to make Scout go light-headed. He’d spent much of his adult life putting distance between himself and other people. Now, in half an hour, he’d had a kid nearly fall asleep on his shoulder, and a handsome man shaking under his fingers.
When it came to cleaning Anders’ thigh, Scout lost his nerve. He gestured awkwardly at the burn and handed the rag to Anders. Anders dabbed off the sap with a controlled wince.
“I’ll give it a few minutes before I put on the paste,” Scout said. “We can wait for the painkillers to kick in. The paste works, but it’s going to hurt like hell when I apply it.”
“It’s… I can take it. Thank you though.”
Scout gave the floor a wry smile. “All home invaders should have such nice manners.”
For just a second Anders looked exactly like his little nephew, screwing up his face to keep strong emotion off it. Anders said, “We….He….We didn’t think….We thought….”
“You didn’t think that it’d be so hard to take something away from me?”
“It’s not…not as bad as that. We’re not as bad as that.” The words broke free in a gush. “We’re not trying to be bad people, we’re just scared, and we’re hungry, and now we’ve made you angry, and my father wanted me to look around and see what kind of guns you have so we would know how much trouble we were in.”
“Your father already knows I have guns,” Scout said.
“He…I know….but….”
“What else did he send you in here for? Let me guess. Keep an eye out for guns—but if you happen to see any drugs, son, then grab those. It’s for the good of the family. Or maybe some of that devil-sidekick moonshine, so I can use it to tend our injuries, because I just can’t figure out what happened to the last bottle. And money—look for any money you can take, those two boys probably have more than they need. Or food. Or anything we could sell. Or—”
“Please,” Anders said in a shaking voice. “Please. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Here’s a start—don’t let your five year-old nephew get hit. Don’t use your five year-old nephew as bait when you want to steal from someone.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t. He’s my father.”
“No, I don’t understand. My father got cut open and eaten by a bear because he threw himself in front of it to save me. No, I don’t understand your father, not at all.” Scout went over to the cabinet and ignored Anders while he stirred up the meat tenderizer paste with a plastic tongue depressor.
After a while, Anders said, “I’m sorry about your dad. I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Is that…. Is it how you got your scar?”
“Yeah. It was.”
“Do… I mean, is it just you and your brother now? Your mom is dead too?”
Scout went rigid. The stir turned into a stab. He forced his hands off the tongue depressor. “You guys have already made it pretty damn clear you know what happened to my brother—you know he went and joined the slavers. When I say he’s dead, I mean that he’s dead to me, and talking about him is a pretty poor fucking idea twenty seconds before I scrub fresh burns off your body.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t mean any of—I’m sorry. You…you can start now. We don’t need to wait for the painkillers. I don’t deserve any of this, any of you being nice to me.”
Scout brought the paste over to Anders. Without further comment, he started to brush the paste over the blisters.
No matter how angry he was, he was still twice as careful not to make it any worse than he had to. He’d been treated for strangle runner burns before. Though he didn’t remember being so aware of someone else touching his skin, the way Scout was aware he was now touching Anders.
He found himself thinking about all of the marks on Anders’ back.
What does it mean when a bad man beats his son? What does it say about the son?
When he got to the burn near Anders’ eye, their gazes caught. Scout froze. He’d never really looked Anders Halcyon in the eyes before. He couldn’t have. He would have remembered the color. They were the most unusual shade of green he’d ever seen, like old copper gone verdigris.
All of the sudden, Anders made a sound and hunched over, holding his gut like it was hurting him. Scout didn’t know if he’d hurt Anders, or if the painkillers had gone bad, but then Anders said, “I just need a second, please. Please. I can do the rest.”
“Do you need to throw up?”
“No, just, just some privacy. For a minute. Please.”
Scout started to back out of the room. Anders’ face was bright red, and he was covering his lap with both forearms. For a second it looked like… Does he have a— No. Couldn’t have! Scout shook his head and hurried out of the room.
He sat down on the floor in the co
rridor.
About ten minutes later, Anders came out of the infirmary. He was wearing his clothes again, damp and reeking of vinegar. He’d cut off one of the pants legs entirely.
When he saw where Scout was waiting, Anders hung his head and came over.
“We hid the batteries in a Mexican restaurant three streets over from the place you found them. We used a wheelbarrow from the public works building. I’m sorry.”
A public works buildings. They probably had a crapload of tools lying around. Smart thinking. “Did you get to Wendell ahead of us or behind us?”
“Behind,” Anders mumbled. “We knew where you were going, so we didn’t have to keep you in sight. After we hid the batteries we got back here before you came back.”
“But you were on the street with us, right? I almost caught you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re good,” Scout said. “How desperate is your food situation? Is your family really in bad shape?”
“We…. We have lots of packaged stuff, but Sampson needs to eat better. It’s not healthy for him. I’m trying to learn how to find things, but I’m not as good as you.”
Scout drew the moment out, and then nodded. “Beck and I will come up with something. As a favor, one neighbor to another. Maybe we can stop this war before it properly starts.”
Scout showed Anders past the tripwires that he and Beck’d need to replace, and then asked Anders to walk them both through the path Anders had followed to get upstairs.
Scout was both surprised and impressed: Anders had actually cobbled together a route he hadn’t expected.
They said goodbye in the lobby. Scout promised again that he and Beck would put their heads together and come up with a better food source. Anders thanked Scout with a nervous smile and left.
The next morning, Cal Halcyon set Scout’s building on fire.
Part v
Several months ago, Beck had waged a very vocal campaign to build a storage area for their back-up canned food that was not a kitchen on the sixth floor of a building with a nonfunctioning elevator. Beck won. Scout let him move their emergency rations to a huge closet in the bank’s underground parking garage, where it was secured with padlocks.