Last Playground

by Geoff North

  Lowe looked at Emma in the almost complete darkness. “Which way now?”

  The circular tunnels seemed identical to the ones they’d traveled through before. They were made of the same crumbling, ooze-dripping bricks that twisted and ran for miles. Brinn lost track of time. The smell and the damp became tolerable, but Brinn’s stamina had its limits. They stopped frequently to catch their breath, and finally, after they rounded a corner and stared ahead into darkness that could have stretched on forever beyond Emma’s light, Brinn sank down into a puddle of inch-deep waste. She didn’t care if the slime of the brick wall rubbed against her back, or if the water soaked up into the seat of her jeans. She was finished.

  Oscar knelt down beside her. “Let me carry you.”

  “Let’s take a breather,” Lowe said. “We can’t go on forever like you.”

  They sat, stood, and kneeled in their little sphere of dim light. They listened to their own labored breathing and the sound of dripping water as it echoed off down into the black beyond. Oscar’s ears picked up a different sound before the others—a scuttling, clicking noise.

  “Something’s coming.”

  Brinn heard it next. “Those aren’t wannasee. What kind of animal makes a sound like that when it runs?”

  The android’s infrared vision could make out the shapes a hundred feet away. They were as big as dogs, but the shape wasn’t right. Their back ends were too large, their pointed faces held too low to the ground. And these creatures didn’t yelp or bark like dogs—they squeaked.

  “Rats.” Marshal Lowe raised his rifle.

  Emma grabbed the barrel and pulled it down. “Don’t!”

  “Now’s not a good time to get all critter-friendly, girl. They’re vermin.”

  He tried raising it again. Emma held it firmly pointed at their feet. “These are the ones I told you about—the rats will take you the rest of the way.”

  Six of the brown-gray-haired creatures slowed up and stopped in the light. They studied the humans with emotionless black eyes; their pink noses sniffed the strangeness of them, and whiskers a foot long wriggled and whipped about their twitching faces.

  Brinn was too terrified to scream. She backed away into the shadows. Something warm and thick curled around her ankle. It twisted up above her knee and waist. Snakehead, she thought, still too shocked to utter a sound. She looked down and saw pink flesh covered with prickly little white hairs. She gasped for breath and finally managed a squeak of her own.

  “Help.”

  Emma swung the lantern around. Brinn was being held by the largest tail any of them had ever seen. The end of it wrapped around her neck and squeezed. The rat it belonged to was much larger than the others; its immense bulk filled the tunnel.

  It grinned a terrible yellow-fanged smile. Its sour breath was hot against Brinn’s cheek as it whispered, “And who might you be?”

  Chapter 17

  2012

  “And who might you be?”

  “Brinn Addam, sir. My mom used to work for you when she was a kid.”

  “Addam? I don’t know anyone with the last name Addam.” He leaned on the glass counter and pushed the thick glasses back up the bridge of his big nose, squinting.

  “Nancy Stauch, Mr. Holter, her last name was Stauch back then.” Brinn wasn’t sure if she even wanted a part-time job in the old man’s restaurant anymore. She had met him a dozen times before with her parents, when Nancy Addam was still alive. Brinn had even eaten here less than a month ago with her dad and Logan. If he couldn’t recall that, how was he expected to remember to pay her every two weeks?

  “Oh…Nancy.” He cupped the side of his head with one hand as it suddenly came back to him. “Your father’s Michael… I was so sorry to hear about your mother. I lost my wife to cancer a few years ago, you know. It’s a terrible thing.”

  Was your wife thirty-six years old?

  That wasn’t fair, she thought. It was a terrible thing. For everyone. Brinn nodded solemnly and forced a smile. “The kids at school said you’re looking for part-time help in the evenings and on weekends?”

  “I’m always looking for help…Brinn, was it?” Brinn nodded again. “It’s a small place but I’m always busy. I don’t need anyone to cook; it’s mostly coffee customers, you know, so I’m always run off my feet. And I don’t know if you noticed, but these feet aren’t much good for running anymore.”

  Brinn’s smile widened. She’d always liked Mr. Holter, forgetful and pokey as he was. Perhaps that was the reason. His round face was always flushed and his eyes were always narrowed, as if trying to focus on something in the distance. But he was constantly grinning, another attribute that made him likeable to all. “I could start right away. I have a resume and references—babysitting jobs only, I’m afraid—but I’m very responsible and hard-working.”

  Ivan Holter chuckled. “And eager. How old are you, Brinn?”

  “I’ll be sixteen next month,” she answered as if it meant nothing, digging into a school binder for the resume.

  “Fifteen, eh? That’s awfully young.”

  She couldn’t find the paper. Had she forgotten it back in her locker? So much for the responsible part. Brinn placed the binder on the counter between the cash register and a stack of clean coffee mugs “I seem to have misplaced it. I’ll run back to school and get it.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Your references are in my head. Nancy was a good worker.”

  Brinn started to close the binder. A corner caught the rim of one of the mugs and sent it to the floor. The handle cracked off on impact.

  She picked the two parts up and placed them in front of Mr. Holter. “I can pay for that. Oh God, I’m such a klutz.”

  “I break at least one of those things every day. They’re cheap. Can you start this Sunday, Brinn? I’ll have two other girls in for the after-church rush. I can get one of them to train you as the day goes on.”

  “I have the…I can have a job?”

  “That’s what you came in here for, wasn’t it?”

  An older woman came out from the kitchen holding a plate with a steaming cheeseburger and gravy-sopped fries. She winked at Brinn on the way by. “We can get her washing dishes right now, Ivan. The sink is full.” It was Maggie Deekers, an old friend of her mother’s. Brinn liked her.

  Mr. Holter started his slow shuffle to the kitchen. “I can still do dishes.” He turned back to Brinn and winked. “Sunday… eleven a.m. Don’t be late.”

  Brinn left the Hamden Family Diner and carried on down

  Main Street with a wide-eyed smile pasted to her face. Her ponytail bounced from shoulder to shoulder and she performed a skip after every third step. It turned into a jog. She was in a hurry to get home and tell her dad the good news. Even if she only worked eight hours a week it would be enough to buy a used car the following spring. How long had it been since Brinn had anything good to smile about? The eight months since her mom had died felt more like eight years. Repressed happiness burned through her. It was a high she wanted to last forever.

  Brinn took a shortcut down a back alley between the pharmacy and the old town museum. Her hip brushed the lid of a plastic garbage pail on the way. It thudded down to the ground and Brinn turned to pick it up. She stopped in her tracks and the smile vanished.

  A furry three-fingered hand reached out. “What’s the big hurry, Brinn?” The thing had to lift its head out at a sideways angle to avoid getting wedged by the ears. “Can’t you stick around and play for a little while?”

  The weight of the melon-shaped skull wobbled on its spindly neck. The diseased fur covering its body was dark yellow and streaked with greasy refuse. Brinn gagged and plugged her nose. She had seen the creature once before on a trip to the town dump. She’d wandered away from her father and got tangled up in barbwire while reaching down for a dirty old Barbie doll. The thing had poked its one-eyed head out of a broken toilet and vomited all over her shoes.

  I was a little kid then—a trapped, frightened child. Why
am I seeing this thing now?

  The garbage monster smiled at her from the pail. It had no teeth, just rotting gray gums and a big, diseased tongue. “You’re growing up too fast, Brinn. You’re forgetting all about your very best friends.”

  “You were never my friend.”

  The dirty cheeks puffed out and Brinn saw a lump working its way up the thing’s throat. She turned and fled before it could spray her with more puke. She looked back once she’d made it to the back street. The lid was still on the ground but the pail appeared empty.

  She told herself it was just doubts about growing up, the fear of beginning a new job, helping Dad out with her little brother…the loss of her mother. It was all happening so fast.

  A white cat she’d once owned that had disappeared three years earlier on a cold winter night started to walk beside her. It sauntered along, tail whipping through the air as cats’ tails will when they seem mildly annoyed. Its ears were rounded nubs, the pointed ends frozen off long ago. Its nose was black and peeling.

  “Putt-Putt?” Brinn reached down.

  “Yeah, thanks for the name. You can just imagine how that went over in kitty-heaven.”

  She ran through a backyard and out into another street. Putt-Putt howled high-pitched profanities at her as she went but didn’t follow. Brinn slowed to a jog when she entered the park. The shortcut home had lengthened another quarter mile.

  Esme was waiting for her on a bench under an elm tree.

  “I know it’s been a long time, Brinn, but we really need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.” Brinn rushed by her. She no longer believed she was willing these characters back into reality. She was hallucinating, having a mental breakdown. And if she was losing it, she planned on doing it at home where no one would be able to witness her talking to herself.

  Esme ran after her. “Please, Brinn…I need your permission…your blessing about something.”

  Brinn refused to look at her. “Oh, that’s good—a vampire wishing to be blessed. Now I know none of you are real.”

  Esme stopped following, her undead heart heavy in her chest. She watched Brinn disappear around a grove of bushes. It hadn’t been easy crossing over into Brinn’s world without being summoned in the first place. But when you have a wizard boyfriend, almost anything is possible.

  Too bad, Esme thought. Too bad it had to end this way.

  Brinn stomped over the stone bridge crossing Hamden Creek, the last of her imaginary friends behind her. She spotted another girl sitting along the grassy bank on the other side.

  “Wanna get high?” the girl called out.

  Brinn wandered over. It would be nice spending a little time with someone real. “Do you ask that to all the strangers walking by? How do you know I don’t work for the cops?”

  The girl snorted laughter and a puff of smoke escaped her nostrils. “You don’t look like the type.” She held a half-smoked joint out. “I’m Selma. Me and my mom just moved here a few days ago.”

  “I’m Brinn…and I’ve never tried that before.”

  “Well sit on down beside me, Brinn, and I’ll introduce you to the stuff.”

  Chapter 18

  Bertha sat well away from the others and watched. She adjusted the heavy blanket around her shoulders and tucked it under her legs, doubting any of them were really there at all, or if in fact, she herself existed. Paris and Esme’s little talk about the world they came from, Brinnia, weighed heavily on her mind. Bertha was created to fight. She had never put much thought into where she came from or why. She had been told her parents were been killed by a gang of desert marauders before she had learned how to walk. She couldn’t remember them. She didn’t know their names. Why those other two couldn’t remember who their parents were wasn’t her concern. Her homeland country of Giraqel was a continent away from Drehdia and Lazar. It was real. Brinnia was real. What gave them the right to question her existence?

  But then again, Bertha had never seen a bear build a fire and sit back on its rear end before. She had never seen a bear talk before.

  The walls inside the ice cave flickered yellow and blue as the little fire sputtered and spat. The black bear reached down and nonchalantly swatted a smoldering piece of ember from the fur of his foot.

  Esme slipped out from under a fuzzy green afghan the bear had provided and placed it across the still-sleeping Paris next to her. “So are you all alone here, Buddy? Are there no other bears?”

  Buddy Black Bear—just Buddy for those he introduced himself to—wiped the burnt soot from his foot. “Nope…no other bears. Neal only had one stuffed teddy in his bedroom.” Buddy was big—not husky-fat big—but long and rangy-looking large. He was an old animal; his black coat was peppered with spots of gray and there were a few teeth missing inside his mouth. There was even a chunk gone from the tip of one ear.

  “Well, thank you again for dragging us into this cave,” Esme said. “I thought we were done for.”

  Buddy chuckled. It made a wet sneezing sound through his black nose. “You were less than forty feet from the mountain’s summit. I bet if you’d staggered up another five or six steps, you woulda seen the cave entrance on top. But hey, it was no biggie… Kinda nice having company after so long.”

  There was a long pause. Buddy looked from Esme to Selma sitting beside her. He looked over at Bertha, and then back to Esme. His brown raisin eyes never blinked. He took a deep breath and started to twiddle the claws placed across his belly. He wasn’t the smoothest conversationalist either. “Uumm…you guys care for anything to eat? I caught an old seal this morning by the lake. Meat’s a bit tough, but we can always soften it some over the fire.”

  “We’re not hungry,” Bertha finally snapped. “We want to know where we are, and we want to know how a bear can speak.”

  Buddy Black Bear shrugged his big shoulders. “I’ve always been able to speak. Haven’t you?”

  “Forget that part,” Selma cut in. “Where are the friends we traveled with? Why is there a travel outpost set up below? Who the hell would want to visit a place like this?”

  “There were more of you?”

  “Two others,” Bertha said. “Four if you include the machines.”

  “I have no idea what became of your friends. The Artica Land Terminal was one of the first travel pads set up. It wasn’t meant to be a place to visit for very long.”

  “So what are you doing here besides eating old seals?” Selma asked.

  “I’m kinda like a custodian…or a guard, I guess you could say. I look after Neal’s greatest treasures.”

  Bertha’s eyes lit up. “Riches?”

  “Favorite old toys and stuff like that. I suppose a nine-year-old would consider them as riches.”

  Paris began to move. Esme started to pull the afghan around him tighter, but he pushed her hand away weakly with a groan. He propped himself up on an elbow and wiped sweat away from his brow. “Get that thing off me, I’m burning up.”

  Esme felt his skin. It was cool—his complexion almost as flour-white as hers. She wasn’t surprised. The bite that had saved his life had transformed him in the process. He was a vampire now. Better than a wannasee, she supposed, but still, would he resent her for it after time? “How do you feel?”

  He blinked and rubbed his eyes. The one was still clouded over, but at least they were both working now. He studied his surroundings, offering the others a weak grin. Then he saw Buddy.

  “Is that a bear playing a guitar, or am I still unconscious?”

  Buddy had pulled the instrument out from behind the rock he was leaning against. It looked comically small between his great black claws and his ability to play left a lot to be desired.

  “Paris, meet Buddy Black Bear. He pulled us in out of the cold.”

  Buddy nodded at him; the claws on one paw were trying to tune the guitar. “How you doing?”

  “A guitar-playing, talking bear… Can you sing as well?”

  “A singing bear.” Buddy sneeze-chuckled again. �
��That would be silly.” He strummed the strings, unsatisfied with the result. “This old thing has just about had it.” He held the instrument out in front of him and admired it. “Neal’s grandfather gave it to him for Christmas one year. His parents didn’t think it was such a great idea because he was only six at the time. He never did bother to play it much.”

  Esme was beginning to see what Artica Land had meant to the boy. “But it held a special place in his heart, didn’t it? He didn’t want to see it shoved carelessly away into a closet and forgotten.”

  Buddy nodded and placed the guitar back behind the rock. He spread his lanky arms out wide. “This place…everything hidden in the caves below…it’s like a big toy box. Neal would come here often—he even brought all the blankets from home, what with it being so cold and all. We would sit and chat for hours about the great stuff he’d bring for safekeeping.”

  Bertha scowled. “So why were we sent here? What good is this frozen rock to anyone?”

  Paris had worked his way up into a sitting position. “It was an accident. Reginald warned us before we transported.”

  Buddy shook his blockish head. “Unh-uh…no way. I could see you showing up at any other terminal, but Artica Land is way too secure. There are too many safeguards set in place. You woulda dematerialized along the way or fried up into little piles of goo had you made it all the way by accident.”

  “We were supposed to go to New Hamden,” Selma said. “Gunnarson programmed the robot to take us there.”

  Buddy looked slightly surprised. “Didn’t Neal send you?”

  “Neal is dead,” Bertha said.

  There was a long moment of silence as the bear stared into the flames of the fire. His brown, unblinking eyes started to water up. “Oh.”