“Okay, Dog,” he said. “Everything in its time.”
That night, he read a novel aloud and every time he glanced up, he found the dog watching him from the stairs. The only time he moved was when a draft of wind plunged in from above and the candles flickered. On those occasions, the dog would lift his head and whine softly.
“You know what?” Robinson said, closing his book. “You’re right. This is no way to live. What do you say tomorrow you and I go out and find a new home? Something less … dramatic. With a view. Would you like that, boy?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t whine again either. Robinson smiled.
“It’s a deal then,” he said before yawning deeply.
Robinson put a mark between the pages of the book and set it down. Then he bundled his ragged blanket under his head before blowing out the candle. He knew he would sleep well that night. His belly was full. He was safe. And when he heard the dog finally pad over to the Old Man’s corner and paw at some blankets before settling down, he had to smile. For the first time since coming to Washington, he had more than a companion.
At last, he’d found a friend.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Memorial
The next morning, Robinson packed up his belongings and bid adieu to the haven. Before he left, he made sure to disguise the entrance to the stairwell just in case he ever needed to return. He hoped he wouldn’t.
He and Dog set out to find their new haven, something that would protect them from the elements and prove inhospitable to renders. That excluded most of the towers and any shop with fewer than one or two entrances. Most government buildings were too large or too exposed. Robinson wanted to be close to the river, not only for its abundant source of water, but so he could see any threat coming. Still, he wanted to be far enough away from the monolith that its ghosts wouldn’t haunt him when he passed.
Eventually, he settled on a building at the far western edge of the arcade. It was another commanding stone structure perched high atop a hill with a range of stone steps leading up to some mighty limestone columns that towered several stories high. The structure was devoted to another one of the continent’s fallen leaders and it paid homage to the man in the form of a giant statue of him seated in a chair, overlooking an expansive pool of water, the city, and everything beyond. The man wore a grave countenance, devoid of humor or mirth, but there was a stern wisdom fixed on his face that was undeniable. Behind him, these words were etched:
In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.
Those words, like his expression, gave Robinson an unexplainable confidence. And he knew in that instant, he wanted to do more than survive. He wanted to live.
A road had once encircled the memorial, but the river had overrun it long ago and now lapped up against the southern edge of the building. An old bridge spanned the river, but it too had succumbed to the steady flow of time. To the north was a barren field with nothing but the husks of old, dead trees and a marsh teeming with mosquitos. To the south, the darkened river flowed steadily past.
“Well, boy? What do you think?”
Dog yapped once and looked suspiciously at the building.
“You’re right. I guess we should see what’s inside first.”
Inside the atrium, they crossed pink, marbled floors to find a gold-flecked door marked “elevator,” but no knob to open it. On the other side, they found a regular door, which after much prodding gave way to some sort of custodial room at the back of the building. It only had one physical entrance. A ladder framed to the far wall gave access to an exit panel adjacent to the colored glass ceiling. Not every panel was intact and some rainwater had gotten in, but for the most part, the room was undamaged and well lit. Robinson wanted to see the view from the roof, but when his feet hit the first couple of rusty rungs, Dog moaned to make it clear what he thought of this undertaking. The risk paid off when Robinson rose into the clear morning air with a view of the entire city. The husks of towers and web of roads, once so terrifying to him, became identifiable from on high. The fact that he could see threats coming helped alleviate his many fears. If this were to be his kingdom, he would need a perch from which to lord over. And this one even had a throne.
When he made his way back down, Dog had curled up in a corner underneath an old, dusty desk and wagged his tail when Robinson’s feet hit the ground.
“Yeah,” he said, “I like it too.”
For all the strengths their new home afforded, security still came down to a single door. Any creature or aggressor determined enough would eventually get in no matter how well it was reinforced. So Robinson decided to build a barricade. While the columns outside were too big and too numerous to secure on their own, the three interior columns at the atrium’s entrance were each under three meters apart. The question then became what to barricade them with. The answer sat on the street outside.
The metal carriages that littered the city would no longer move and Robinson didn’t have the strength to lift them by force, so he set out to find something that would. A dozen blocks away, he stumbled across a grocery store and found many stacked metal carts inside. Dog watched as he drew them out one by one, testing the wheels to see if they turned. When Robinson was satisfied with four of them, he drew them down the street.
Two blocks away was a garage that catered to carriages. He added as many tools as the carts could carry, including hammers, saws, chisels, and pry bars. Lastly, he dismantled two hoists used to raise engines and the chains attached to the sliding doors of the garage.
After returning to the memorial, Robinson cut the box portion from every cart and used the long pry bar to slip each four-wheel base along the rusty carriage frame. He then secured the hoist and chains to pitons on the roof before maneuvering the carriage to the foot of the steps. Using makeshift sandbags on a pallet, he used the hoist to pull the carriage into place between the interior columns. Exhausted but thrilled with his progress, he settled down to supper with the last of his rations and Dog at his feet.
“A good day’s work, Dog.”
Dog barked twice, his eyes on the food in Robinson’s hands. Robinson split what he had and tossed it to him. After gobbling it down, he looked up, expectantly.
“I’m afraid that’s the last of it. Maybe if you spent more time hunting and less time playing, we could both fatten up some.”
Robinson chuckled and turned back to stoke the fire. Then he felt the oddest thing. Dog had crossed over and began licking the grease from his fingers. Very slowly, he reached out and set his other hand on his head. He didn’t stop licking, but when he scratched him behind the ears, his eyes closed and he knew they had turned a corner.
“Man’s best friend,” he said. “It’s a tough moniker to live up to. Still, if we’re going to be pals you and me, we’ll need to find you a name more suitable than ‘Dog.’ A proper name, yes?”
Dog barked.
“I’m glad you agree. Now, it should be something representative of who you are—that is to say, your character—but also something with style.”
Robinson offered several suggestions, including Patches, Shadow, and even Renderbane. Perhaps he sensed a change in tone, but when Robinson said “Jaras,” the dog growled.
“I was just teasing!” he said with a laugh. “This is harder than I imagined.”
Dog groaned and lifted his leg to lick his nether regions. With each swipe, the tag on his collar tinkled.
“What’s this?” Robinson asked.
Dog went still as he reached for the tag. It was bronze and much worn. One side had an image of what looked like shooting stars escaping a clutch of clouds. The other side was almost entirely faded except for four raised letters on the outer edge: RESI.
“Resi,” Robinson said. Dog picked his head up. “Is that your name?”
Dog licked his hand again.
“Well, I can’t say I know what it means, but it
suits you. ‘Resi’ it is.”
Resi barked and Robinson scratched his ears again.
For the next two weeks, they followed the same routine. In the mornings, they traversed the food route, collecting game from the traps that were still fruitful, while moving the barren ones closer to the memorial or wherever Resi’s nose signaled there were animals to catch.
In the afternoons, Robinson returned to the fortification of the sanctuary. The work was grueling, but he developed a system that got easier with each attempt. By the end of the week, he was stacking one carriage every afternoon. Many of the vehicles were corroded with brittle frames that bent or snapped under significant weight. As he stacked them, he was forced to make repairs to keep them from toppling over.
But eventually, the barricade took shape. To fill all three entranceways, he had amassed the shells of twenty-nine vehicles. Each row stood five meters high with only a few small fissures that he filled with whatever recycled materials were at hand—discarded baskets from the carts, half the shell of an old school bus, and rusty road signs. When he was sure no significant-sized threat could burrow its way inside, he broke down spades from wrought iron fences and built a stone grader to sharpen them. He positioned these lances pointing outward to fend off any enemy that got too close.
As an extra measure of caution, Robinson retrieved four drums worth of oil from the park, using a stirrup pump fabricated from vehicle parts and an old garden hose. He used the crane to lift them to the top of the roof where he could push them off any of the building’s four corners at a moment’s notice.
Lastly, he made an addition to the crane that raised the wooden lift from one side of the barrier to the other. When they were within the structure, the lift was inaccessible to anyone outside. When they ventured out, the lever to release it was hidden in a small cleft laden with resin and broken glass.
Next he began work on a water system that fed directly from the river. Thankfully, he had done a report on hydrodynamics in school, so he understood the basic principles. All it took was the construction of a small waterwheel with support beams, an axel, and rotating glassware that fed to a series of old pipes that ran into the memorial. It emptied into a boiler tank heated by firewood.
This allowed him another luxury: he could bathe. The Old Man had refused to clean himself for fear the odor would make him more identifiable to the renders, but Robinson wasn’t worried, being surrounded by so much foliage.
Robinson had also made tallow candles from the fats of animals, but those with high lipid counts were hard to come by. Still, when he heated his last batch, he found some left over in the double boiler. He decided to mix it with oils distilled from eucalyptus, lavender, and sunflower seeds in the hope of making soap. But somewhere along the way, the mixture got screwed up and he woke with a terrible rash. Even worse, the smell of the stuff was so bad, Resi slept on the other side of the memorial for three days and always walked upwind of him when outside.
One morning, Robinson woke to find a chill in the air and he knew winter was around the corner. Twenty-two days had passed since the Old Man had left. Although his new home was secure, he’d put off two of the most important tasks for too long.
The first task was to stockpile food. Since his primary diet was animal protein, he knew it would be hard to come by during the winter months, so he built a smoker that he used to dry thin strips of meat at a low temperature for over six to twelve turns. This would preserve the meat for weeks, if not months, though the burning smoke did draw a few renders during the daylight hours.
The other task was to find a source of heat for the memorial, since the wind came straight off the river and might otherwise turn their new home into a block of ice. Robinson returned to the library. From parabolic boilers to geothermal heating, to stoves that burned propane, gas, or corn, there were a myriad of options. The one he ultimately decided on was a wood-burning stove since it would be easy to maintain. To prevent the smoke from identifying his location, he decided to only use it at night.
While these projects did their best to distract him during the day, nothing could soothe the loneliness he felt at night. When he wasn’t reading books aloud to Resi, he was sitting atop the roof, staring through an eyeglass he had discovered in a museum. His eye was set to the stars, hoping each passing meteor was a flyer whose light would grow brighter and brighter until it touched down outside the memorial, where his father would stumble out. He would look around, see his son, and smile, saying, “I knew you’d be all right.” But the stars never halted. Nor did the night. And Robinson knew, as surely as he knew anything, that he would never see his loved ones again.
When the nights were too cold to venture outside, he lay in bed, holding his mother’s locket. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell her scent ingrained in its links. When those memories became too much to bear, he took it off, wrapped it carefully in a rag, and pushed it into the recesses of some old pipes and tried to forget about it for a while.
The day that changed everything began with rain and ended with fire. In between, the sky was blotted with smoldering clouds across which flocks of birds trudged silently south against prevailing winds. Ill omens were plentiful when he looked for them. Robinson had done everything in his power to avoid these signs. And yet there was no denying the one portent he had been dreading for twenty-nine days: the killing moon. It had returned, wholly waxed and blush—so foreboding that by late afternoon, it had driven everything else from the sky.
Robinson tried to stay busy. He clung to routine. But in the end, nothing could ease the sense of dread building inside him. Resi also seemed tense.
They retreated early and fortified the barricade. They blocked every door. They sealed every window. But nothing could keep the darkness out forever. There was only the wait and the silence before the storm.
When he could take it no longer, Robinson took his eyeglass up to the roof, ignoring Resi’s cries. And as surely as the world turned, his worst fears were confirmed.
It came with a crimson sail and black sigil. It came with the paddling of oars and the beating of drums. But this time, it also came with the one person who would change the course of his life forever.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Girl
She was pulled from the ship with a group of prisoners, hustled in leather bonds toward the cages that sat just off the river’s edge. Had she gone meekly like the rest of the chattel, he would have never noticed her. But this girl had fight.
She refused to enter the cage willingly, so a savage captor struck her across the back with a staff. Her legs buckled but only for a second. Then she spun and hit the man as hard as she could. Her wrists were bound together, so it was her elbow that struck him across the bridge of his nose. He went down screaming.
A second savage swung his staff at the girl, but she stepped effortlessly out of its way before leaping forward and butting the brute in the head. He too went down. Unlike his friend, he did not get up. Unfortunately, before the girl could run, three other savages tackled her and forced her to the ground. Punches and kicks followed. A spear went up, but it never came down. At that last moment, a meaty hand had wrapped around it, staying the killing blow. It was the hand of Savage Chief.
He said something to his men and they laughed. He then grabbed the girl by the hair and dragged her, kicking and yelling, into the cage. Once the door was closed, Savage Chief headed for the monolith, but his eyes stayed on the girl.
She had black hair and dark skin. Even from afar, Robinson could see the tone of her muscles and the fire in her eyes. Her head spun around as she tested the lock on the cage and the corners where it had been tied. The savage whose nose she had broken came over to taunt her but leaped back when her hands shot through the bars.
The drums drew out the renders. The first pair appeared out of the park, lumbering together in a strange unison. Only when they leaped over a small gorge did Robinson realize they were not a pair, but two renders fused as one. The bea
st writhed and howled as it maneuvered around the fires to where the first of four prisoners was chained to the obelisk. Each held a weapon but none had any fight. The creature attacked. The prisoners died.
Like the previous bloodletting, Robinson could not turn away. But this time, he was no longer willing to just stand by and watch. The sight of the girl and her continued struggle prompted him to act.
Without thinking, he rushed down the ladder and stripped to his trousers. In the corner was a vat of crude oil that he had used to make resin. He opened it and slathered the black liquid over his face and body until he was covered. Then he recovered a small bag of tools. Resi barked his disapproval, but he refused to let it dissuade him.
He crept along the riverbank, keeping watch of both the savages on shore and those aboard the ship. Two men sat atop the bow, drinking some intoxicating concoction and howling at every gory death.
As Robinson moved closer, he saw a wave of renders try and attack from the eastern side. One of the savages tossed several small clay pots of flammable liquid into the fray. A companion slung a torch in seconds later. The conflagration instantly lit up the creatures and the night. The chorus of inhuman shrieks was deafening, but it was the stench of burning flesh that rolled over him seconds later that nearly had him spilling his guts. When he stumbled in the water, the nearest savage turned toward him. He ducked behind some reeds, heart thundering, hoping he hadn’t been seen.
The drums picked up in tempo as the savages chanted some evil verse over and over. Near the ship’s edge, Robinson could see two of the savages caught in some frenetic dance, their eyes stark and white, their mouths lolling open, screaming in ecstasy as they writhed. Some had sharpened their teeth to points while others had pierced their bodies with human bones. All bore black tattoos in patterns across their chests and backs.
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