by Andrew Smith
Then we separated, and there was nothing but the sound of the waterfall.
Whirrrrr . . .
Whirrrrr . . .
Whirrrrr . . .
Mel looked away from me. I licked my lips to taste her again.
I swallowed.
She got up and slipped her feet into her shoes, hair dripping, wearing the dress of my basketball shirt, looking perfect. Mel picked up her discarded clothes from the ground, wadded them up, and stuffed them inside the backpack.
Then she said, “Come on. Let’s see what else we can find out here.”
She held a hand out to help pull me to my feet.
My knees shook.
“Okay.”
Father Jude, the Sister Ladies, Joe, and the Attic in the Church
Breakfast was wild, and he knew it.
But over the years he’d spent traveling with his companion Olive, he’d held on to what he could by talking to her. And Breakfast talked almost incessantly. Despite any limitations he may have had, the one thing Breakfast was certain to be true was that if he did not keep talking, he would forget how to, and after that, the wildness would overtake him.
Breakfast believed there was no fun to be had in being wild, unless you knew you were wild and could articulate it.
So Breakfast was wild, and he knew it.
“You know what I am, Olive?” he said. “I bet you know it, girl. I’m wild. That’s what I am. Wild.”
They’d been locked inside the Hole in the lightless Camp Sumter for nearly two days with neither sign nor sound from the insane Edsel and Mimi.
Olive was scared. She stayed the entire time, always touching, making contact with Breakfast. And throughout the ordeal of darkness, Breakfast talked to her, recalling every detail from his life before and after meeting Olive that he could remember.
He'd never known his parents. Breakfast’s earliest memories established themselves as narrative stories in his mind beginning when he was about four years old. At that time he lived with a group of three adults and one teenage boy named Joe Mahan in the attic of a Catholic church. Joe Mahan had been altar boy in the church when the plague of monsters rained down on Missouri. The adults—one man and two women—always wore black, Breakfast explained to Olive, because it had something to do with their being in the church.
“They prayed over me and Joe every night, because they wanted to keep us safe, and they wanted me to not be so wild,” Breakfast told Olive. “Praying is when you put your hands together and fiddle with necklaces and ask for something you can never have. They asked for me to wear clothes, mostly, which, every time they’d try to put something on me, it felt likely to make my skin blister and burn, so I always tore it off. Right away. I’m wild, and I don’t want to wear clothes unless it’s freezing, and even then I don’t, but I especially don’t want to wear clothes just because a bunch of old people get jittery looking at someone without shoes and pants and such nonsense. And they also prayed for me to stop peeing on the big round colored window at the front of the attic, but it didn’t work, on account of me being wild. Did I ever tell you that?”
Olive loved listening to Breakfast’s stories.
All of Breakfast’s stories were true.
“But it was Joe who took the time to teach me how to read and write. He was my best friend ever, up until I met you. Well, actually, up until Joe got eaten by one of the monsters, I guess, which didn’t happen until a couple years after Joe and me moved to the farm with the others. Joe was a full-grown man by that time.
“You know what else was in the attic with us? Bees. Bees was in the attic. And they had such big drapes of honeycombs, just dripping with honey. And you know what else? I was the only one of us who could ever get that honey and not get half stung to death. I bet you already know why, though. Wild.
“Mmmm . . . honey. Doesn’t that just make your mouth water, thinking about us going out and finding some honey, Olive? Remind me that’s what we’re gonna do once we leave this shithole—get us some honey.”
Olive held on to Breakfast’s hand and bounced up and down. She wanted some honey too.
“Living in that attic was miserable for those other people. Me? I didn’t know nothing different. I might as well have been living in this cage for all I knew. I don’t have any idea how I came to be there in that church either. But let me tell you, there was nothing to do. That’s why Joe taught me how to read. He was clever. Sometimes he would sneak out and go find cigarettes or magazines to help with reading and writing. Joe always kept one or two of the magazines he’d get rolled up beneath the pieces of carpeting we slept on. Those magazines had pictures of naked people in them. I didn’t see anything wrong with that, but Joe said we had to keep it secret from the old man and the ladies. Sometimes Joe would bring back bottles of vodka, and the man—his name was Father Jude—would get mad at Joe for bringing back the vodka, but he’d always forgive Joe after he’d had a few swallows from it.
“Then Father Jude would make Joe pray because he felt bad. They always felt bad about something, which is another thing I didn’t get. That, and wearing all those dumb clothes. People in Joe’s magazines didn’t wear clothes. Why should I? The sister ladies drank too, though, but only after the rest of us went to sleep, so nobody would know. But when you’re wild like me, you’re real good at pretending to be asleep and then watching people sneak off and do things they don’t think you know they’re doing.
“At the other end of the attic there was a painting on the wall. Sometimes the sister ladies and Father Jude would pray in front of the painting, which showed some naked babies with wings in the sky over a lady who had a dead guy with a beard on her lap. So many naked people everywhere, and still the people in black wanted to pray over me to start wearing clothes.
“And back by that painting of the naked flying babies and the dead guy, they had a blanket hanging up, and there was a bucket on the other side of the blanket, just like this bucket here, except the bucket in the church attic had a smooth seat on it so people would be comfortable hiding behind the blanket when they needed to pee or make shit. Is that the dumbest thing you ever heard? Sometimes Joe would go back there with his magazine, too, especially when Father Jude or the sister ladies were out in the town looking for food for us. Joe was wild, but he usually wore clothes.
“On each side of the colored window where I used to pee and sometimes take shits that I didn’t hide to do there were small round windows that had crosses in them. They were clear, so you could look out onto the street below. I had to climb up the wall like a lizard to see out those little windows, but I was always good at climbing, and you know why, right?”
Olive bounced.
“That’s right. I could climb up that wall like a lizard because I was wild. Hang on, girl. I need to poo now. I’ll tell you the rest of the story in a bit.”
Breakfast got up from the rags on the floor and went to the bucket.
Olive held his hand and followed.
And Breakfast said, “I don’t like people to hold my hand when I poo, Olive. Don’t be scared. I’m just right here.”
Olive let go of Breakfast’s hand, and the boy grunted and farted, because he was wild.
Breakfast went back to their rag bed and sat beside Olive.
“Now. Where was I? So, one time I’d scrabbled up that wall to look out the window with the cross in it. Father Jude and the sister ladies were out in the town looking for things, and Joe had been drinking vodka and was hiding behind the blanket with his naked-people magazine. When I looked out at the town, I remember it had just finished raining because the street below was all shiny. Winter was over, and it was beginning to warm up. And you know what I saw? I saw monsters out there—big bugs, right? They would have shit themselves if only I had you then, but I only had Joe. But I saw not just a few of them, Olive. I saw more of those giant peckerheads than I ever saw before or since—a hundred of them, at least, and every one of ’em was as big as a tree.
“So I said,
‘Joe! Joe! Come here and look at this. The monsters are everywhere!’ And Joe eventually come out from behind the blanket, buttoning up his britches, and he climbed up next to me, even though Joe could not climb like a lizard on account of him not being completely wild, and wearing clothes and stuff most of the time, and acting like the world was going to turn itself around and go back in time to when we didn’t have to live inside this old attic and hide from monsters with three old people in black. And Joe said, ‘This is not good, Breakfast boy. This is not good at all. We better stay as quiet as we can and wait here, and maybe we should pray for Father Jude and the sister ladies, so they can be safe.’ And I told him right out that it was the dumbest thing I ever heard, on account of I never seen one thing get got that anyone had ever prayed for. And Joe said, ‘Yeah. I suppose you have a point there, Breakfast boy.’
“So it was just like this, Olive. Joe and me waited in that old attic for three days with nothing to do except practice reading and writing, and Joe let me look at the pictures of naked people with him. But then we ran out of water, and we ran out of anything to eat, and so on the third night, Joe said to me, ‘We can’t stay here, Breakfast boy. If we do, we’re going to die. Are you brave enough to head out with me?’
“And I said, ‘Let’s go outside, Joe.’ Wild.”
There was a creak and a clanging of metal.
Finally, the door to Camp Sumter was opening, and Breakfast could see the silhouettes of the insane old carnies moving through the maze of skeletons toward the Hole.
Hunting for Food in the Dixieland Bayous
Breakfast whistled as loud as he could.
“Ahhhh! Motherfucker! Quit it!” Edsel screamed.
“Shoot ’em both if the little fucker does that again!” Mimi said.
“I’m sorry. I thought you forgot about us,” Breakfast said. “We sure are thirsty, and I’d be happy to go out and catch you some food if you let us stretch our legs.”
“That’s why we come. We’re hungry, and we need you to go do some work, so you can earn your keep,” Edsel said.
Breakfast did not understand what he meant by “earn your keep.”
Mimi unlocked the useless cage door, and Edsel held the pistol pointed at Breakfast’s belly. Then Edsel and Mimi escorted their captives back out through the fun house.
“How good are you at gettin’ ducks?” Edsel asked.
Breakfast nodded. “I’m wild. I can take down a whole flock of ’em with one whistle. But you two are going to have to plug your ears on account of I don’t want you to be inspired to shoot me.”
“You just get the ducks and shut up about it,” Edsel told him.
The day was so bright it nearly blinded Breakfast and Olive, after having spent two days in absolute darkness.
Edsel and Mimi took their prisoners to an entertainment pavilion that had been built on an immense marsh. The pavilion was called Dixieland Bayous and featured a large stage constructed atop a floating platform.
Breakfast saw there were at least sixty ducks paddling around in the cattail-choked swamp, which was ringed with tall trees that wept massive curls of pale Spanish moss.
Breakfast held up his hand and whispered, “We have to stay real quiet now, on account of I need to get up as close to the water as I can before giving them a blast.”
Edsel nodded. “Do what you have to do, boy.”
And Breakfast put a hushing finger to his lips and whispered, “You might want to hold your ears once you see my fingers go up to my mouth.”
The three humans and one nonhuman primate crept closer to the water’s edge. Unlike the foul, sometimes decapitating, artificial-cesspool setting for the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack, the swamps encircling Dixieland Bayous were natural and clean. Ducks paddled and flapped over the tiny windswept chop of the waterways, painting an image of the most peaceful and unspoiled scene imaginable.
In life, it had been Breakfast’s experience, peaceful and unspoiled scenes frequently preceded those of brutality and death, and this was no exception.
They stood behind a blind of breeze-tickled cattails.
Breakfast whispered, “Okay. Here we go.”
Mimi grabbed the bottom of her stained nightgown and wadded it into her ears.
Breakfast noticed her legs were so white they were nearly purple, and the skin on the old woman’s thighs draped down in arches that covered her kneecaps.
Edsel jammed the stub of an index finger in one ear and tilted his head to cover the opposite one with a shoulder so he could maintain the grasp on his pistol. There was a tattoo of a spider clutching a nude woman in its fangs on Edsel’s belly.
Olive bounced up and down excitedly.
Breakfast was her hero.
The wild little boy inserted his fingers into the corners of his mouth and stretched his lips tight.
And behind the small group, limping and staggering through the wreckage of a broken-down food stand called Granny Gert’s Gator ’n’ Grits came an old and starving Unstoppable Soldier, a male who had not eaten in two summers, and one of the few of its species remaining in the state of Tennessee. He was zeroed in on a lifesaving meal of human meat.
The Unstoppable Soldier had rotting disease spots on its exoskeleton and open sores that oozed burbling pus around the segments on its abdomen, but it was so very hungry. Glycerine strands of anticipatory saliva dropped in gooey strings from its mandibles.
Clicking softly, the monster stalked his way closer.
Nobody heard a thing.
Breakfast let rip a deadly, shrill blast that lasted a solid ten seconds.
Edsel screamed, “Goddammit! Ouch! My ears are bleeding, you little shit!”
In the long run, it did not matter that Edsel’s ears were bleeding.
It did not matter because in one leap, the Unstoppable Soldier could close the distance between itself and the adult humans. It didn’t even notice Breakfast and Olive, who were crouching inside the jungle of cattails at the water’s edge.
Ducks flapped wildly. A few of them took to the air, managing to only gain a foot or so in altitude before crumpling back down into the swamp. Some of them fluttered in spasms of death, casting off feathers in the wake of their final movements.
Breakfast wiped the spit from his fingers on his belly. “That should do it.”
The boy pushed his way through the reeds and waded out into the deep, cool water.
“I’ll be right back,” he said to no one who would care, except possibly Olive.
Breakfast swam out toward the flotsam of death.
And the Unstoppable Soldier sprang forward, firing its tooth-studded forearms wildly into Edsel and Mimi, who hadn’t heard a thing.
Aware of a commotion behind her, Olive turned around in the cattails just in time to see the Unstoppable Soldier snatch both the old carnies in the spiked traps of its forearms. And Olive tried to save them. Olive would have tried to help anyone, but it was already too late.
Edsel and Mimi put up no struggle.
The only sound Edsel and Mimi made was a kind of crunching sound, like Breakfast made when he chewed on raw crawdad tails.
But Olive clapped her hands and jumped up through the scrim of reeds, flailing her arms as she ran toward the distracted predator. When the giant insect-monster saw Olive, it immediately dropped one of Edsel’s tattooed legs and tripped over its own feet, slipping backward in a pool of blood and innards that had spilled onto the ground below.
Olive was mad. She did not like seeing people being eaten, even ones who were cruel old heroin addicts like Edsel and Mimi. She bared her teeth and scrunched her face into the scariest expression she could manage, then swiped her inordinately long arms in the air toward the Unstoppable Soldier, who had been so frightened by Olive that it choked and gagged on a portion of femur that had not been properly chewed.
The thing turned and ran with increasingly struggling, slowing strides, dripping gore, wheezing and gagging on the bone lodged in its gullet, until
it could go no farther and collapsed in a sighing and hissing heap, satisfied, but mortally stricken.
Olive jumped up and down, careful to not trod in what had formerly been the contents of Edsel and Mimi.
I Only Want to Be a Human
I remember this about my mother, Shann Collins.
Until she lost all of what she had been before the hole, and, like her mother, Wendy, transformed into just my mother in the hole, there were moments of softness between us, and between my mother and my two fathers, too.
I remember this.
The anger she carried usually began to grip her during the winters, when my fathers would go away together, ostensibly to bring supplies and trinkets back to the hole for the rest of us, but in reality to also do that which I felt each of them, and myself, were driven to do—to go away. By the time I was twelve years old, my mother’s anger had taken hold and did not abate, increasing in pressure to the point at which she actually struck my father, and cursed him, that time we’d gone fishing when I was thirteen.
There was a lounge in the hole. It was a place where we would listen to music. It was where Robby taught me and Mel how to dance, too.
The winter of my eighth birthday, when my fathers were gone again, I sat in the lounge alone with my mother, and we listened to some old music on a tape machine we had there. My mother told me this was my fathers’ favorite music. It was music that got inside my bones, I think, and made me want to move, to go away, like all boys, I suppose, but I could not articulate it at the time.
“What was it like?” I said. “What was it like on the outside, to walk down a street and see a hundred faces on people you never knew? Or to be inside a schoolroom with so many other little boys and girls?”
My mother said, “It was just like here, except more crowded.”
I could not, even at that time, believe our Eden was an accurate model of the world before the hole.
“Will there ever be more boys and girls like me and Mel?”
My mother smiled. She rubbed my leg.