Last Playground

by Geoff North

  “I should’ve thought things through. Coming here was a bad idea, and bringing you along was just plain dumb.”

  “I can look out for myself,” Selma said. “Been doing it for a long time now.” She squinted and saw the figures off in the distance for the first time. “What are those things? People?”

  Marshal Lowe returned to them and whispered, “C’mon, girls, we have to get moving.”

  “Those are wannasee?” Brinn asked.

  “Yup.” He pulled at their arms and they followed him back towards the others.

  Selma jogged next to him. “How do we stay ahead of them? It sounds like this world is full of them.”

  “It is.”

  Brinn wanted to know more but gathered from Lowe’s short answers that he didn’t particularly want to talk about it. He was moving quickly, almost running, mindful not to let his boot heels touch the ground. She was watching his feet too carefully and stumbled on her own. She fell and scraped her knee against the dry ground.

  “Crap!” She had torn a quarter-sized hole in her new blue jeans.

  A piercing shriek erupted through the air from the farmhouse. Brinn forgot her skinned knee and clapped both hands over her ears to try and block out the awful wail. It was like a police siren stuck on its highest tone. It wouldn’t stop. She pressed her hands tighter but the sound only strengthened, piercing like two needles jabbing inward on either side of her brain.

  Lowe was yanking Brinn back to her feet. She could see his lips moving—he was shouting—but she couldn’t hear. She didn’t understand the first part, but the last two words were easy enough to read.

  They’re coming.

  Chapter 5

  2003

  “They’re coming.”

  Brinn’s heart fluttered at the idea of it. One Easter Bunny laden down with chocolate eggs and multi-colored jelly beans was exciting enough, but the thought of a dozen or more was almost too much for the six-year-old to bear.

  “Stop it, Michael,” Brinn’s mother scolded. “She eats too many sweets as it is—why do you have to build it up? You’ll only hook her on the stuff even more.”

  “Well it’s silly to think that one big rabbit could hop around the world delivering that much candy to kids in a single morning. Surely he has more bunnies helping.”

  “What color is the Easter Bunny, Daddy?”

  “He’s big and pink, sweetheart, with a fluffy white tail,” Michael answered without pause.

  Nancy plopped the frozen turkey into the kitchen sink and washed her hands off with warm water in the second basin. “Next you’ll have her thinking there are a dozen Santas.”

  “That’s silly, Mom. The elves help Santa.”

  Michael placed his pumpkin pie into the pre-heated oven and closed the door with a self-satisfied look on his face. The pumpkin had come from a tin, the pie crust from a box in the freezer. He felt as though he’d baked it entirely from scratch.

  Brinn was still too young to realize her father could botch even those simple directions. The pie wouldn’t be that tasty, but the spray-on whipped cream always made up for it. She pulled a pink crayon from her box and started to color in the rabbit-shaped outline in her coloring book.

  Michael sat next to her at the kitchen table. “What about the tail? Are you going to leave it uncolored, or is there a white crayon in there?”

  Brinn rested the crayon’s end against her cheek and fished through the messy box. White was the only unused crayon of the bunch. “White’s boring. It’s the same color as the paper.” She grabbed the stub of a metallic golden one instead and placed it to the side.

  Nancy ruffled her hair. “The Easter Bunny won’t come at all if you don’t get a good night’s sleep, young lady. Time to put that stuff away and head to the bath.”

  The coloring books and crayons were packed away without protest. Brinn paused at the refrigerator and taped a picture of blue and green eggs to the door. Nancy kissed the top of her head and patted her bottom. “Now off you go. I’ll be there in a minute to run the water.”

  Forty-five minutes later Brinn was in bed, staring up at the white ceiling and imagining how hard it might be to reach up and color some more onto the boring white tiles. She pictured a different bunny hopping on each square. She started to count the tiles. The sun dipped outside and the ceiling faded to gray. Brinn would forget where she was in her count and start again, her eyes growing heavy after twenty-four.

  Something sneezed at the foot of her bed.

  It was now fully dark outside her window, the only light in her room cast from a tiny nightlight by the door. Two furry ears wiggled out of the blankets by her feet. There was a second sneeze, and a little face poked up from the folds. Brinn wasn’t afraid. The little bunny was pink, just like the one she had half-finished coloring earlier.

  “Hey, little guy, what’s your name?”

  The rabbit hopped along the blanket and settled on Brinn’s chest. Its pink nose smelled a button on her pajamas.

  “Silly me,” Brinn giggled. “Bunny rabbits can’t talk.”

  A second rabbit thudded down next to her, making Brinn jump. It poked a wet nose into her ear. She giggled again and prodded it away with the side of her head. The yellow fur was warm and smelled like chocolate. A third rabbit fell, a blue one. Brinn looked up and saw three ceiling tiles missing. A fourth tile started to slide away and another bunny landed on her legs.

  Brinn sat up excitedly and prepared to catch them as more squares slid away. The black patches became filled with sparkling points of colored light. Jelly beans fell from the empty spaces, bouncing off her blankets and rolling to the carpeted floor. Rabbits continued to drop and jelly beans rained from twenty-four openings.

  Brinn spun around the room, laughing out loud as candy pelted her forehead and ran down under her pajama top. She stepped on a white bunny tail and the animal squealed. Brinn squatted down to her knees and cuddled it up into her neck with a kiss. The others hopped around her, sniffing and wiggling, scratching lightly at her legs and pushing candy up to her with their whiskered faces. She could no longer see the carpet beneath. An inch of jelly beans covered everything, and they continued to fall.

  Brinn looked back up and a purple jelly bean smacked off a front tooth. She howled and the rabbit in her arms jumped away with a push of its powerful little back legs. Brinn’s hand went to her mouth and she started to cry.

  Nancy Addam entered her room moments later. The jelly bean shower had ended but the bunnies were still there, two dozen of them huddled around the crying girl in a pool of pastel pink, yellow, purple, and blue. The candy spilled over Nancy’s slippered feet and into the hallway. She kicked them hurriedly back in, watching to make sure her husband hadn’t heard the commotion.

  Brinn sat on the floor and waited for her mother’s punishment, the tears already drying on her cheeks. Three rabbits hopped into the bowl between her crossed legs.

  “How long?” Nancy asked as she made her way to the bed. She worked the blankets up, containing as much of the rattling candy as she could.

  “How long what, Mommy?”

  “How long have you been able to do…this?”

  Brinn shooed the rabbits off and started to pick the candy up between her hands. “I can’t do anything. I thought I was dreaming.”

  Her mother tied the blanket up at its four ends and lugged the forty pound plus load to the floor. She repeated the process with the sheets underneath. She would need boxes, lots of boxes to clean this mess.

  “Make the rabbits go away, Brinn.”

  “I can’t do that… I dunno how they got here.”

  Nancy’s face was white, her mouth a grim line. “Make them go away, and never bring them back.”

  Brinn saw something in her mother’s eyes that scared her. Nancy Addam knew how this had happened—she had seen it before—and it wasn’t a good thing. The little girl closed her eyes and concentrated. The rabbits began to rise into the air. One by one they vanished into the twenty-four
openings above. The tiles slid noiselessly back into place.

  The jelly beans remained.

  Chapter 6

  The noise became more bearable the further they ran. It was still loud, but Brinn was at least able to stand it without covering her ears. It had become a low droning buzz, like standing beneath overloaded electric cables running between power poles, but more so what you would hear—and possibly feel—if you stood on a ladder with your head inches from the wires. Its effect had weakened Marshal Lowe to the point of a lurching jog. He let go of the girls and pushed them on.

  “Go on, catch up with the others. I’ll try and take out as many as I can.”

  Selma had already taken his advice. The girl was staggering on ahead.

  It was Brinn’s turn to pull on his arm. “Are you nuts? I’m not going to let you play the big hero and sacrifice yourself for us.”

  The wannasee were crossing the plain towards them. A few were running on four legs and pulling out in front of the others. The distance between them had closed by half, but Brinn was still unable to make out any distinguishable features. All she knew was that they were terrible-looking creatures—hairless, and in some cases fleshless. Lowe fired his rifle and blew the leg off one just above its knee. It slowed some, but continued to advance frantically on its remaining three, throwing up dust with its featureless snout as it plowed along the ground.

  It dawned on Brinn as the wannasee approached what it was that made them unrecognizable for her mind to grasp. They had no faces. Oscar had told the literal truth—no faces—no eyes, no mouths or ears or noses.

  Oscar appeared out of nowhere in a cloud of dust and squeaking knees. “Let the marshal do his job,” he said, scooping her up into one arm, “and let me do mine.” He stopped for the struggling Selma along the way. The girls wrapped their arms around his neck and the android started to run.

  Brinn bounced uncomfortably in his strong grip. She strained her head down and saw his legs pumping—each stride longer than the last—until the speed was so great the movement became a steady blue blur. They were moving faster than a speeding car. Brinn looked ahead, and through the howling push of air managed to see Bertha waiting up on a higher outcropping of boulders a hundred yards away. Reginald was still rolling ahead of them at a decent clip, but the android was cutting the space between even faster.

  Oscar had to yell so the girls could hear him. “I took Bertha to safety first before coming back for you. She wasn’t very happy.”

  I can imagine. Brinn looked back and saw Marshal Angus Lowe making his stand a quarter mile away. Even from this distance he was a fearsome figure. He stood tall and sure, the crack of his rifle firing reverberating out across the plains every two seconds. And every shot found its mark. Wannasee fell left, right and center. The creature with three remaining legs had fallen behind but Lowe hadn’t forgotten it. He shot again and one of its back limbs disappeared. It attempted to continue its mad pursuit, spinning in circles on its side. It stopped moving a few seconds later.

  Oscar slowed quickly and deposited Brinn and Selma next to Bertha. The barbarian woman lifted a fist, threatening to strike him. “Don’t you ever take me out of a battle again—I can fend for myself.” She started running back towards Lowe, drawing her sword along the way.

  “Get back here! Don’t force me to pick you up again!” he shouted after her.

  “Let her go,” Brinn insisted. “Believe me, she’ll be fine.”

  Reginald began twirling his tubular arms in the air as Oscar headed back out. “We must retreat up into the rocks. Brinn must be protected at all costs.”

  Oscar stopped and shot the robot a frustrated look. It was true. He couldn’t leave her. Too much had already been lost, too many had already died. Brinn was half sitting, half leaning against a boulder for support. She was a tough kid, he gave her that, but the shock was beginning to set in. The girl next to her had sunk down into the dirt. She had an even more stunned look to her. His eyes glowed red as he zeroed back in on the marshal with his telescopic vision and watched for a few moments as the lawman continued to blast wannasee. They were still coming, but their numbers were thinning. For every shot taken, he made three long steps backwards. He was making good time and soon Bertha would be at his side, hacking down those he missed. They would both be back into the boulders, and safety, within a few minutes.

  Or so he hoped. He turned back to the girls. “Can you two climb up higher into these rocks or do you want me to carry you again?”

  Brinn shook her head and started up, dragging Selma behind her. Reginald followed, rolling on his treads where he could, and pulling himself up through the jagged, uneven surfaces where he had to with his snake-like arms and wiggling metal fingers. At the fifty-foot level, Oscar had to assist all three of them. A minute later they had reached the top. They sat on a flat boulder, twenty feet across and slanted slightly downwards in the direction of the battle.

  “I guess this is where we make our last stand, huh?” Brinn noted, trying to catch her breath. She sat down and crossed her legs, sinking her face into her hands. “Oh, what have I gotten us into?” Gunshots were her only answer. Lowe continued to fire and retreat. Bertha was with him now, cutting down any creatures that got through the marshal’s field of sight.

  Selma was cleaning the dust off from her hoodie. She squinted out into the distance. “Doesn’t he ever run out of bullets?”

  “Never,” the android answered.

  Brinn could tell Oscar was still itching to help the two below. She desperately wanted him to stay right where he was. “Where does he carry them all?”

  “He doesn’t have to. He finds them as he goes—under rocks, inside old tree stumps. Wherever there’s a handy crook or cranny, and the need is there—he finds them.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” Brinn did understand however; it made perfect sense in an imaginary world. She just needed to hear him say it, and she needed him to stay with her and Selma. Reginald, though friendly enough, gave her the creeps with his blinking lights and slithering fingers.

  “When a little kid plays Cowboys & Indians, the last thing he thinks about is reloading his toy guns. He just keeps firing and firing. That’s how Neal set things up to work here all those years ago. The world is dying, but the essentials are still plentiful enough. Like the dirt on the ground and the rocks and hills. The weapons Lowe uses are real, that sword Bertha is swinging around is real. They’re essentials. Ammunition is an essential. When Lowe needs to reload, he’ll find what he needs close by.”

  They watched the wannasee numbers decrease. Lowe and Bertha were directly below them now. There was a pause in the gunfire as the big lawman stooped down. He turned a plate-sized rock over at his feet and picked something up from the ground underneath. He resumed firing his rifle a few moments later. Bullets—ammunition buried in the dirt. “But Uncle Neal is dead…how can this world continue to…restock itself?”

  “Because everything wants to survive. The wannasee are dying but they keep pressing on. Angus is doing the same. If he needs something bad enough, he can conjure up enough juice out of this old world to find it.”

  “Then why doesn’t he conjure up a few machine guns and rocket launchers?” Selma asked. “This world is retarded.”

  Reginald beeped twice behind her. “Neal set up the rules. He saw to it that when the marshal needed the basics, the basics would be provided. Our cowboy down there doesn’t have the ability to conjure up anything more than bullets and bourbon.”

  Brinn felt a bit more hopeful. “What about you two? Do you have any basics you’re equipped to conjure up?”

  “I have no such ability,” Reginald said. “When my power packs need replenishing, I go to Commander Gunnarson for a recharge.”

  Gunnarson. Who was this commander they kept referring to, she wondered. “What about you, Oscar? Does Gunnarson replace your batteries as well?”

  “I don’t require recharging. My central power unit is a self-regenerating nuclear p
ower cell.” He patted his chest. “Good for a thousand years…give or take a century. Unfortunately my other problems—these squeaking knees, and the artificial skin missing from my arm—can’t be repaired. When this body finally wears down, that’ll be it for me…nuclear-powered heart or not.”

  “What about that organization of yours—the Super-Secret Intelligence Agency—is there no one left to patch you up?”

  “The facility still exists, as you’ll soon see, but there’s no one left alive to repair my parts.”

  As you’ll soon see. She didn’t like the sound of that. But any other place was preferable to this one.

  The rifle shots finally ended. Lowe and Bertha were climbing up through the rocks to join them. The flat plain behind them was littered with dozens of fallen wannasee. The lawman stopped just short of the final flat boulder and reached down behind a smaller stone. There he found a bottle filled with whiskey. The cork made a popping sound as he pulled it out with his teeth. He tipped it back and drank a quarter of the contents. Liquor was as readily available to him as bullets, it seemed. More essentials, Brinn thought.

  Bertha sat down beside her and cleaned black gunk from her blade. “His weapon hurts my ears, but it is effective.”

  Lowe climbed up and offered the bottle to Bertha. “Killin’ is a thirsty business.”

  Brinn pushed the bottle away. “She doesn’t need that. I can’t believe a little boy would see a need to supply his imaginary friends with booze.”

  Lowe pushed the cork back into the bottle neck and sat down. “Tasted more like apple juice in the beginning, but things have a way of changin’ over the years. Gets awful lonely out here… Especially with only the likes of them two for company.” He pointed to Oscar and Reginald.

  “I wouldn’t get too comfortable, Marshal,” Reginald said. He was looking out to the south. “Or too drunk. We have more company.”

  They all stood up and saw the wannasee coming. There were hundreds gathering. Oscar scanned the northern horizon. “Must be a thousand heading from that way.”