by Lynda Engler
Isabella’s mind wandered off at some point during the introductions. She kept smelling fruits and vegetables. It reminded her of the hydroponics garden back home. Isabella guessed that there were agricultural fields beyond the houses, perhaps on the other side of the lake, hidden now by the failing light. Maybe they even had an orchard. She was sure she could smell cherries!
“Our community of Telemark is a mixture of tribes that have settled here since the wars. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like,” said Oberon. “The land is cleaner than most. It lies high enough in the mountains to avoid a lot of the toxic runoff that the cities have to deal with. Of course, there is still the rain and evaporation cycle that continues to recirculate the contaminants from the old world, but it is certainly better here than in the cities. Our lake is clean enough for swimming and our wells bring drinking water from deep beneath the Earth.”
“Your wells are free of poisons?” Malcolm asked incredulously.
“Mostly, but we do boil the water before drinking it to kill bacteria or other dangerous living organisms in it,” replied Oberon.
“I never thought of that. I didn’t know that would kill toxins,” answered Malcolm with a frown.
“It doesn’t; only bacteria and viruses. It doesn’t get rid of the chemicals that rain from the sky, but it helps,” said Oberon as he planted himself on one of the sitting logs on the dark sand of the beach. He waved his hand at the remaining logs that circled the fire and said, “Please, sit and rest. You must be tired.”
Malcolm sat beside the Chief and the rest of his tribe dropped what they were carrying and crashed down exhausted on the thick logs. Isabella was so tired she wanted to sprawl out on the sand, but as her hand brushed the sand to steady herself as she sit down on Malcolm’s other side, she decided against it. The sand was course and rough and wet. Dew had already fallen.
“Your village is impressive, Oberon. The houses are in such great condition,” said Malcolm as he took Isabella’s hand in his and brushed off the damp sand that clung to it.
“My father’s father found the place, abandoned, and began to rebuild. His tribe tore down about a third of the houses because they were beyond repair, and then they used that land for farming. The top two feet of soil was removed by those ancestors of ours and dumped in a ravine to remove the radiation in it before it was planted. It must have been a very hard job to do manually. But now we have suitable soil to grow vegetables and fruits. Our livestock are fenced in to guard them from predators.”
Isabella was awestruck by Telemark. She had only imagined a place like this village. It was as if all the books she had read had suddenly come to life. Isabella thought it must be exactly the kind of place Malcolm had had in mind for himself. Maybe they had found what they were searching for. Isabella wasn’t sure; there were too many possibilities and she was too tired to think about their future. At least for tonight they had a comforting and welcoming place to sleep. For the first time since leaving her shelter, Isabella felt safe and secure.
“Please, sit by the fire and tell me about your travels,” said Oberon.
“We were attacked by Eaters in Dover. We barely made it out alive. But we did! We killed a dozen of them and lost no one of our own.” Malcolm shook his head as if trying to clear the memory of the battle before continuing. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. “That was early this morning. We don’t know what’s in Rockaway; we went far around it after our battle with those creatures. We marched all day, always looking behind us to see if there were more of them. Always checking to see if we were being followed. But we weren’t. Are you safe from them here?” Isabella held her husband’s hand as he spoke with the Chief.
“We know of Eaters. They are mindless creatures, driven only to eat. If they don’t find passing people, they’ll eat each other. But they don’t leave the buildings and alleyways and sewers of the city. They don’t go out into the woods. There are fewer of them every year. They don’t appear to breed. You may have killed the last infestation of them in Dover, thank God. And as far as we know, there are no more Eaters left in Rockaway either.”
“Where do you think the Eaters come from? We’ve heard they were the children who were alive during the war,” said Isabella. She was horrified that the creatures could have been innocent little children who had somehow survived the bombings while their parents, siblings and neighbors perished. She wanted to feel sorry for them, growing up all alone, like something out of Lord of the Flies. But after what Isabella and her new family had been through that morning, how could she have compassionate feelings for the creatures that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life?
Oberon looked at Isabella but she had a hard time reading his facial expressions. The darkness of night along with his dark and reptilian textured skin made normal facial expressions difficult for Isabella to ascertain.
“My people have toiled for decades to rebuild the Telemark you see before you. If Eaters were a problem for us here, my ancestors would never have settled in this place. The Eaters do not come here and we don’t know why. I’m sorry I don’t have a definitive answer for your question, Isabella. I can only tell you what has been handed down to us from our Elders. The Eaters are most likely those young people who survived when everyone one else died. It is possible that experiencing the trauma of seeing their parents die of horrible deaths from radiation was as much to blame for their growing up to become creatures that could rip the flesh from other humans, as the caustic chemical rain that changed their skin into thick, grey hide and burned their eyes out.
But their history is unimportant to my people. What is important is that they don’t leave the city. Telemark is only a long day’s march from the outskirts of Dover. But the Eaters won’t set foot into the vegetation,” Oberon finished.
Isabella replied, “Maybe they are afraid of the woods.”
Oberon’s quick laugh made her jump. “Afraid! They rip the flesh from people before they are dead. ‘Afraid’ isn’t in their makeup, girl.”
Isabella felt about two inches tall once she realized the stupidity of her premise but she couldn’t really blame Oberon for laughing at her.
Malcolm squeezed her hand but didn’t say a thing. At least he wasn’t laughing at her.
Oberon did however offer another theory. “Some have said that the Eaters travel with a kind of echolocation, like bats. They are blind, that much is certain. Perhaps the ability to navigate around solid surfaces like walls and sewer tunnels is due to that strange echolocation ability. But we think that it doesn’t work bouncing off trees. Trees, no matter how thick and dense, are not a solid wall and it confuses them.”
Isabella considered his theory. “It does sound much more plausible than that they are simply afraid. I wish we knew for sure.”
Oberon replied, “Back before the wars, I’m sure some scientists could have dissected one.” And then he smiled.
Isabella could read the irony in his face. Before the Final War, there were no Eaters to dissect. And now, there were no scientists to examine the gruesome side effect of those wars.
Oberon shifted his position on the log and leaned forward. “But we can talk more later tonight or even tomorrow. Let’s get your people settled. Its pitch dark. When was the last time your tribe has eaten?” asked the Chief.
“Not since breakfast,” replied Malcolm. “And that was before the battle with the Eaters.” The seemingly asleep little children made their way to Malcolm at the very mention of food.
“Please, Papa, can we eat now?” asked Shia. Shia was always hungry, as were both boys of Malcolm’s tribe. Andra and Davin didn’t mention hunger, but she was sure eventually Andra would become comfortable enough with them to speak up. She wasn’t sure about little Davin. He didn’t eat much even when food was plentiful.
“I will take you to my home for a meal,” said Oberon. “We have plenty of meat and we harvested snap peas today and kept a basket of fresh ones out before canning. And I’m sure yo
u smelled the cherry pies my wife has in the oven.”
* * *
A dozen or so mutants don’t go unnoticed through the woods. When Luke set out the next morning, he immediately picked up their trail of broken branches, trampled ground and footprints in the mud. You don’t need to be an expert tracker to follow this group, he thought. If only I’d started out north instead of south. I’ve lost a whole day headed in the wrong direction! How could I have been so stupid to not even LOOK at this side of our property before setting off? Grandmother always said he was a know-it-all. Luke was so sure he had reasoned out the way his sibling and the mutants had gone that he had failed to simply use his eyes. At least he had acquired the map, so it was a useful mistake but that was not nearly enough consolation to make up for the loss of a day; a day spent Outside absorbing radiation.
While his ditsy sister Isabella loved soaking up the sun underneath the glass bottom pool of their shelter, Luke had spent his free time in the compound reading survivalist novels. His grandfather had a whole collection of paperback books written in the 80’s about a survivalist, Jon Bjork, a man who survived against unimaginable odds after a nuclear war, traveling through the ruined country to find his family. The books described how the hero, a weapons and survival expert, helped others as he traveled, saved his family and friends and then went on, book after book, adventure after adventure, to free the world from the surviving communist and fascist governments.
Luke envisioned himself as such a survivor, even if he didn’t have weapons like the fictional Bjork’s twin 45 pistols or even the knives his hero carried. His grandfather’s guns were locked up, so bringing a gun with him on his journey hadn’t been an option. He had brought along a kitchen knife because he was sure he would need it Outside if only to cut up food, but he knew that with the world 99.9% devoid of humanity, there weren’t many dangers from people. Still, he suddenly pictured himself facing down a large predator with his small knife and felt ridiculous. He wasn’t Jon Bjork.
But he didn’t need to be! That was fiction. As much as he enjoyed reading those stories, they weren’t even quality writing much less an accurate picture of the world Outside after a REAL global disaster. The plot was dated, not to mention the hero was an expert in so many things that it made the whole book unrealistic. The real world wasn’t like those cheap paperbacks. He would be fine.
Luke had enjoyed the mindless escapism of reading those books but he had never understood many of the social and political references in them. Luke had been born decades after the 1980’s and even though he had studied history, things like the Cold War and Communism still didn’t make much sense to him. How could a war be “cold” and why would countries aim weapons at each other, knowing if they used them they would destroy each other and possibly the entire world?
That wasn’t how the old world had ended anyway.
Fifteen
Soft bed, clean sheets, the smell of breakfast cooking…Isabella jerked awake, frantically opening her eyes. Where am I? she thought, fully expecting to see the blank white walls of her family’s shelter. As her head began to clear, she recalled the settlement at Telemark. Her half-awake mind drifted back to the memory of their battle with monsters in Dover and then their exhausting march to Telemark. Finally realizing that it was no dream, not even a nightmare, but the actual events of yesterday, she sat up suddenly fully awake. Where is Malcolm? she wondered, almost panic stricken.
Isabella relaxed when she looked down beside her and saw him lying next to her in the large bed, softly snoring.
Her mind insisted on replaying the events of yesterday, but her half-dreams only forced the recollection of the nightmare portion of the day upon her conscious memory. Isabella now made herself recall what happened after they had arrived at Telemark. Once the two leaders, Oberon and Malcolm, had made their formal introductions and exchanged stories on the lakefront, the Callaway tribe had been offered food and shelter.
Telemark village had given shelter to all the families in their tribe but Oberon had given the honor of staying in his own home to Malcolm, as a special gift from one leader to another. Malcolm and his family had been taken back to the small house they had passed on the entry road when they had first arrived. That house turned out to be the village chief’s home and those had been Oberon’s son’s playing on the porch and waving to the visitors.
Last night’s dinner with Oberon and his wife, Violet, had been wonderful – there had even been sweet cherry pie for dessert.
The village leader’s home had a large living room that connected to a dining area and kitchen. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom down the hall. Upstairs were two extra bedrooms.
The three children – Isabella was starting to think of Shia, Andra and Davin as her own – had fallen asleep on the couch right after dinner while everyone else talked.
Isabella had carried each sleeping child, one by one, into the bedroom and tucked them in, placing a gentle kiss on each small forehead. Afterward, Isabella had collapsed, exhausted into bed in the room Oberon had given them and fallen asleep, listening to Malcolm and the others still chatting downstairs in the living room.
Now, as the bright morning sun pushed its way into the bedroom through gaps in the window shades, Isabella quietly slipped out from under the cool sheet, careful not to wake Malcolm, and made her way downstairs to the kitchen where she found Oberon’s wife at the stove.
The kitchen jutted off the side of the house, the only portion of the home that was a single story. Sunlight streamed through two skylights in the ceiling, making the kitchen glow. Bits of dust floated in the air, iridescent in the light beams and making the air sparkle. “Good morning, Violet,” said Isabella softly.
“And a good mo’nin’ to you! You’re up early,” Violet said warmly as she separated thin slices of some kind of meat and placed them in a large pan on the stove.
“A delicious smell drew me here. What are you making?” Isabella asked, still standing in the kitchen doorway. The hardwood floor felt remarkably smooth under her bare feet. Isabella felt she could stand there forever, just soaking in the sun and enjoying the marvelous – and safe – village abode. It truly was a bit of paradise.
“Bacon and eggs. It’ll be done soon. I’ve asked my boys to play quietly in their room until breakfast is ready, so ya’ll could sleep.”
“Thank you,” replied Isabella with a smile as she entered the kitchen. “I’ve never eaten eggs or bacon, but I’m pretty handy in a kitchen. If you need help, I’d be happy to lend a hand.”
“Lordy, you never ’et eggs? We are lucky that we have domesticated pigs for bacon and pork. Not everyone has that you know, and the wild boar that roam the forest don’ make for very good bacon, not a’tall they don’t! I know we’re an unusual village having pigs, but didn’t you at least have chickens where your tribe came from?” asked Violet in her slow, odd drawl. Isabella had never heard anyone speak quite the way Violet did. Violet cracked brown eggs into a skillet on the stove. The egg sizzled as it hit the hot pan and two bright yellow yolks congealed in the white goo.
Obviously after Isabella had gone to bed last night, Malcolm had refrained from mentioning to Oberon and Violet that she was from a shelter. Just knowing that she hadn’t been singled out as different from the rest of the visitors somehow warmed Isabella’s heart.
Isabella started to reply to Violet just as Oberon and his two boys entered the room. They each gave Violet a kiss and then the little boys began setting plates out on the table. Oberon smiled at Isabella and then reminded his sons to set five extra places. Extra chairs had been added to the large table last night before dinner, but obviously Oberon didn’t think that would be enough to remind his young sons to put out extra plates and utensils.
Isabella said, “I’ll go get Malcolm and our kids,” but as she turned to leave the kitchen, she ran right into Malcolm. “Oh!”
Malcolm smiled that wonderful white-toothed grin that Isabella loved so much and she wrapped her arms arou
nd him in the kitchen doorway and gave him a kiss on the neck. When she pulled back she saw that he was sleepy eyed and his hair was a mess but he was wearing the clean clothes that Oberon had laid out for him.
“Now I’ll go get the kids,” laughed Isabella.
Soon the big table was filled with happy children, all serving themselves food, eating and giggling. Seeing that Davin was too short to comfortably reach his plate, Oberon got a small wooden crate from the pantry, scooped up the small boy, placed the upturned crate on the chair and sat the boy down on it all in one quick motion. He clearly had experience with small children. That crate had probably been used for his own boys when they were smaller.
The children devoured the food at light speed. There was fresh milk from the cows in the pasture, bacon, which was too greasy for Isabella’s taste and delicious fried eggs. There were sliced tomatoes and green peppers as well. The vegetables were the only thing on the table Isabella was familiar with, but she eagerly tried the rest.
“What a tasty breakfast, Violet,” complimented Malcolm, around a mouthful of chewy bacon. “It’s been an incredibly long time since I had fresh eggs.”
Violet blushed, pink blossoming in her almost translucent fair skin. “Thank you.” She turned to Isabella, picking up their earlier conversation. “I can’t believe you had no chickens, Isabella. Where’d you say ya’ll are from?”
“Our tribe is from Ewr, but my people call that city Newark. I’m not from Ewr like Malcolm and the rest. I grew up in an underground shelter and only joined Malcolm about two weeks ago. It seems like a lifetime ago,” explained Isabella. “I’ve seen so many things that I never could have imagined. Not all good, either. But I feel like I’ve lived more in the last two weeks than in all of my almost seventeen years combined.”
Oberon had been silent most of the morning. Isabella wondered if he had something on his mind or if he was just generally a quiet man. But now he spoke up. “Isabella, if you don’t mind my asking, why would you leave an underground shelter to travel with a mutant tribe, when you had food and family and a home without radiation or chemicals to make you sick?”