by Hugh Howey
He prayed and listened for the sound of digging—but heard nothing. His pulse. His pulse. Maybe the sand wasn’t so deep. Maybe his mother was okay, pressed there against the wall. Maybe Violet—his half-sister—maybe she would live and her story would be known. He might have a minute of air left. They could dig him out. But that rumble—that rumble—too much sand. It had gone black in the room. The sand had swamped the second story of the Honey Hole. The great wall must’ve gone. Collapsed. Blown up. And the sand on Conner’s back grew deeper and heavier with this thought. In the dark and quiet, he imagined the horror that must be taking place outside. His rapidly approaching death became a pinprick in a wider world of hurt. That grumble of sand he’d heard had been the dune coming at them, the great dune behind that teetering wall on which he’d been born. A life given and then taken away. It had come for him. Had found him. Was now going to claim him.
The struggle against the sand was futile, so Conner relaxed. As he did, it felt as though the bullies on his back grew heavier, like he had sagged within himself and the sand was eager to consume that space, to take whatever he might give. How much longer? The need to breathe grew intense. Like the training games with his brother, when they strained their lungs and counted with fingers. Dizzy. No way to inhale or exhale. Would just black out. And as he felt it coming, his panic surged anew, and there came an intense drive to not die. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to call out to Rob, to his mom, tell them he loved them, get them out of there, somebody please dig me out of here.
As his senses faded, the press of sand all around him softened. It was as if his skin was growing numb to the pressure. Or the blood flow was stopping. Conner had a bright flash of a memory, his father waking him up one morning with a finger pressed over his gray beard, urging Conner to be quiet. Conner, confused, half-asleep, leaving the room he shared with his brothers, his father taking him up the narrow stairs to the top of the great wall. They sat there with their faces to the east and their feet dangling over the ramparts. A windless, noiseless sunrise. The first quiet dawn he’d ever seen, one of those rare moments when the gods stop their thundering and become calm, when the sand isn’t blowing down on them—and Conner sat and watched the morning sun swallow the stars and then Mars, and then a golden dome of light grow and blossom into a perfectly blue sky.
“Why’s it so quiet?” he had whispered to his father. He was young and confused. “Will it always be like this?”
“Another half an hour,” his father had said, studying the sky. “If we’re lucky.”
This placed an enormous pressure on Conner to enjoy the moment. To remember it. To soak it up. The way that crow up there flapped its wings as it took advantage and made for the east. The way the sun warmed the cool morning air. The stillness on his cheeks. His father’s heavy hand on his shoulder. Remember. Remember, he told himself. That intense pressure to make this last forever, to cup his mind tight like hands under a running tap. And then he had glanced up and down the ramparts and realized they were enjoying this moment alone.
“We should wake the others,” he had whispered. “Palmer and Vic—”
His father squeezed his shoulder. “They’ve had theirs. This one is yours.”
And nothing more was said as the sun broke free of the dunes and the wind returned and whatever made that noise that haunted their sleep resumed its infernal grumbling. And it dawned on Conner, sitting there on the great wall with his father, that the world was full of secrets and strangeness. At some point in the past, he had slept while Vic and Palmer had been taken up into the darkness to witness this. They had never told their little brother, had never shared that moment, and Conner knew he never would either.
And it occurred to him there in the Honey Hole, buried under all that sand, that Rob had never been given a windless dawn with their father. Had never been given any kind of morning with him. Had never known him. And the sand loosened even more around his body, and Conner knew it was happening. The last of his breath. The last of sensation. He’d had a minute or two there under the press of dune to consider his life—and now his time was up.
But as the sand grew lighter, he felt his body more keenly, not less so. He swallowed back a sob. Swallowed. The fists around his neck lost some of their grip. There was a hum in the earth. A hiss. That sound of someone diving nearby. He’d heard this sound before, his ear pressed to the hard pack as he listened to his father scavenge beneath him. It was the sound a diver could only hear when his suit was off and another’s was on. And Conner discovered that he could move. Someone was loosening the sand.
He still couldn’t breathe, was still buried and blind, wasn’t sure how many ticking heartbeats he had left in his lungs, but he struggled against the sand to reach for his boot. Couldn’t swim in this. Couldn’t get anywhere. But might be able to bring his knee up, stretch his hand down, reach inside, bring out the band, hit the power, fumble with the wires, the scratch of the rough floor as he wiggled beneath what felt like a thousand heavy blankets, his little brother crushed beside him, his little brother who could never hold his breath quite as long. Got the band plugged in. Sand crunching between the contacts. Wouldn’t work. No way. Band on his head, the sand growing less viscous, and then feeling a connection with the drift, with the sand pressing in all around him.
No visor. No way to see. No way to breathe. But he could move. Not much time. Conner went to where he thought his brother would be and felt a body. He grabbed Rob, didn’t feel anyone grabbing back at him, didn’t feel life there, but he had no time to consider this. No time to think about the miracle of the boots or the nearby diver, only of getting to the bed. He pulled Rob along like some scavenged find. Another body. Someone on the bed. He felt someone on the bed moving.
Conner groped. His mom. Alive. Something in her lap. He didn’t wait, didn’t think, didn’t have a heartbeat of air left in him. He pushed up. Up. Made the sand hard over his head to protect him. Was back in that box Ryder had made, that coffin cube, breaking through, up through the ceiling and into the third floor. Dark. Loose sand. Light. Dim, but there. And then air. Stuffy attic air. A glorious pocket. And Conner, exhausted and choking on grit, passed out.
46 • A Buried People
He couldn’t have been out for long. He woke on top of a shifting pile of sand. His mother was beside him, her lips pressed to Rob’s, his young cheeks puffing out as she blew into his mouth, sand spilling from her hair and coating both their faces.
The sand beneath them was sinking. Swirling and draining out somewhere. A creak and the snap of timbers overhead. A thrumming violence all around. The whole world was moving. The Honey Hole was moving. Slashes and stabs of light lanced through fresh cracks in the wall. Barrels and crates were piled up, having been shoved aside when Conner pushed his family up through the ceiling. They were in the third-floor storerooms. But they were sinking back down, riding the plummeting level of the sand, fighting for purchase and stability, their mother cursing and losing her grip on Rob.
Conner remembered the boots. He hardened the sand beneath them all, made a platform. His mom breathed into Rob’s mouth again. The girl was there. Violet. Eyes open, alive, looking at Conner, taking deep breaths. Father had taught her well. But Rob. Poor Rob, with an affinity for all things diving but never a chance to swim beneath the sand. His first time. Don’t let it be his last. Don’t let it be his last.
Conner watched his mother work, was too tired and numb and afraid to speak. He just concentrated on keeping the sand firm as they floated down. All the sand in the Honey Hole was draining away, vibrating as though someone was making it move. The rigid platform of sand rode back through the hole and into his mother’s room. More light filtering in. Sand coursing through the shattered window and the splintered wall. The Honey Hole was now above the dunes. Conner didn’t understand. He felt a rage and a violence in the sand, could feel it through his boots and his band. A burn like the fabric was on fire, a scorch around his temples, and then that rage and heat were gone.
The world fell still. A coat of sand stood on everything in the room, but the drift had poured out. Conner tried to piece the last few minutes together, wondered if maybe the Honey Hole had done a full roll, if he’d been buried for a minute as the world went upside down, had righted itself, and then the sand had drained away.
He went to his mother and Rob. His brother wasn’t moving. Their mom leaned over him, palms on his chest, pressing down violently and counting. She got to five and stopped. Bent down and began blowing into Rob’s mouth again.
“What do I do?” Conner asked.
His mom didn’t respond. She repeated the steps. Like she was reviving a drunk. Or someone choking in the bar. Here was the reason they’d brought the girl to the Honey Hole. His mom could save people. That’s what she did. That’s who she was. And Conner saw this as she bent to her task. He pulled for her. He pulled for Rob. Reached for his brother’s small, limp hand. Saw that Violet was holding the other. Sand coating all of them. They had come back down beside the bed, the four of them on the floor, and then a gasp of air from their mother—
No, a sob. A sob from their mother. The gasp from Rob.
His brother spit sand and heaved for air. Their mother cradled his head, and Conner felt his brother’s hand flex around his own. He realized he was squeezing Rob’s too tightly.
“Water,” their mother said. She turned to Conner to give him some command, but then her gaze drifted beyond him to something on the floor. Her eyes grew wide in alarm. They opened like the empty sky. Conner turned, expecting another wall of sand to come crashing down from behind him, and saw the body lying on the floor just outside the door. A woman. Rivulets of red trickling from her ear. Head turned to the side, facing him, a visor over her eyes. But Conner would recognize her from a thousand dunes away. His sister. Here. This made less sense than the sand.
He scrambled toward her, got his hand tangled up in the wires that trailed from his band to his boots, threw the band off his head and let it drag behind him, finally made it to her side.
“Vic?” He rolled her onto her back. Lifted her visor. There was blood coming from her nose. Conner cried out. He turned to his mom, who was still holding Rob and urging him to breathe. “What do I do?” he asked.
His mother was crying. Dark streaks of sand beneath her eyes like ruined makeup. Conner tore his shirt off and shook the sand out as best he could. He dabbed at Vic’s nose.
“Is she breathing?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know!”
He didn’t know. How did you check? What was going on? Vic and all the sand. The world had gone upside down. Rob was coughing. Violet took over holding him while their mother came to Conner’s side. She seemed unsurprised. Calm. She checked Vic’s neck and then held her cheek to her daughter’s lips. And Conner saw again that this was their mother. Taking the dunes as they came, as the world shifted beneath her feet, all in stride, because the world had always been moving. A shock to Conner, this violence, but his mother was just in motion. Saving them.
Vic stirred. Groaned.
“What the fuck?” Conner asked, overwhelmed by a flood of confusion and relief. He surveyed the damage, this gasping and sand-covered family all around him. Maybe his mom didn’t hear. She didn’t answer, didn’t tell him to watch his language, just held her daughter as Vic’s eyes fluttered, as her sand-crusted lips parted, a groan and then a gasp.
Vic tried to sit up. She looked around the room, seemed to grasp where she was.
“Easy,” their mother said.
But Vic didn’t seem to hear. Vic didn’t go easy. “There are more,” she said, as though she had never been unconscious, as though she weren’t bleeding, like she was finishing some sentence started a year prior. A year. It’d been that long since Conner had seen her. And her first words were: There are more. And then: “I’ve got to go.”
She staggered to her feet. Wobbled there. Steadied herself on the doorjamb with one hand and raised the other to touch her visor.
“The great wall—” their mother said, turning to what was left of the window.
Vic dabbed at her nose and inspected her finger. “Check the others,” she said, jerking her head down the balcony. She turned to go.
“Wait,” Conner begged.
But his sister was already running toward the stairs. And the word she’d left them with—others—rattled around in his head. The miracle of his own life and the confusion over what in the world had happened dimmed in the bright new awareness of all those who must be in trouble. His mother seemed to understand. There was no shock or complaint. The lid on a jar of water was cracked and passed to Violet, who took it with her bandaged hands, and the ministered-to became the caretaker as she held the jar to Rob’s lips.
Conner was the one left staggering about, the one with the dull ache of a bomb blast ringing in his ears, the one groping after his own life for a minute, for five, before looking to help others. His mother and Vic had sprung into action like they’d been here before. Even Violet seemed to take this awful world in stride. Conner spun and felt bewildered. Lost. He heard his sister racing down the steps outside. There was a band on the ground, a diver’s band, and a trail of wires leading to his father’s boots.
Conner gathered the wires. He pulled the band down over his head. There were buried people outside. His buried people. This he knew. Conner ran out of the room, yelling for his sister to wait up.
47 • Not Enough Buckets
His fear was that Vic would be gone and far beneath the sand by the time he got outside. He navigated the staircase, which swayed beneath his feet, was hanging on by a few sad nails. There were people stirring across the expanse of the bar, helping one another up, piles of drift everywhere, some bodies half-buried, as many alive here as dead, a miracle. By the time he reached the front door, Conner had a vague sense of what his sister had done, why any of them were still alive. He knew, but it wasn’t possible. Lifting a building like this. The blood leaking from her ears and nose. He felt afraid of his sister right then, a feeling remembered from childhood.
He spotted her outside, saw her running across the sand rather than diving into it. A nightmarish world stood all around: folded tin and splintered wood jutting up through a rolling sea of new sand. To the west, the sprawl of Shantytown seemed to have been spared. Those on the eastern edge, however, were gone. Conner saw people rushing in with shovels and buckets. More stood scattered atop the distant dunes, shielding their eyes and staring numbly toward the scene of such awful destruction. Conner chased after his sister. He glanced over his shoulder toward the east and saw the mostly flat expanse of ruin. A ridge of a fallen sandscraper jutted out of the sand like the spine of a half-buried corpse. A high dune stood where the great wall had once been. All the rest of that sand—stored up for generations—was gone. All that misery had been evenly dispersed.
Conner concentrated on keeping up with Vic, tried not to think of the great wall and the sight of empty air where it had once loomed. He could taste the fear in his mouth at the sight of such permanence ended. Don’t think about it. Follow Vic—who for some reason wasn’t diving beneath the dunes to rescue others like he thought she might. She raced instead through structures that became more intact the farther west and north they went. Conner was out of breath, his heart pounding. He chased her around a home, was fighting for the voice to call out to her, when he spotted the sarfer sitting out on the open sand.
The mainsail was still up, the fabric luffing, boom swaying. A rebel sarfer with a red canvas. Some part of Conner knew that his sister being there when the great wall collapsed was no coincidence. The thuds he had heard before the sand had rolled in—he remembered the sounds like distant bombs. Dozens of them. Vic spent time with the sorts of people who might do this. The thought that she might be involved, might have a hand in the death of thousands, might have come there only to rescue their mom—this was a more personal and direct hurt than the toppling of the wall. It was the scratch that burns rather than the blunt t
rauma that knocks a man numb.
At the sarfer, Vic rummaged for something in the haul rack. No… not something, someone. Conner drew near and realized it was his brother.
“Palm?” he asked, the confusion piling on now. He rested against the sarfer’s hot hull and caught his breath. His older brother gazed at him from the shade of a makeshift bimini. His face was blistered. His lips swollen. He managed a wan smile. Vic was giving orders to them both. She pressed something into Conner’s hands. He looked down. A pair of visors. A band. She pulled a dive suit from a bag in the passenger seat. Palmer was saying that he was okay to dive, to give him the suit. He tried to get up, but Vic shoved him back down.
“You can barely walk,” she said.
Conner wondered what was wrong with his brother. Palmer’s face had shrunk; his cheeks were sharp; there were the beginnings of a beard on his chin. “I can walk,” Palmer insisted.
Vic took all of two beats to consider something. As rarely as she stood still, it felt like a lifetime. She reached some decision. “Head to the Honey Hole, then,” she said. “Help Mom. Wait for us there.”
“What about the sarfer?” Palmer asked.
“Leave it be. Just take the water. And be careful. The sand is loose, and there’s debris everywhere.” She turned to Conner. “What’re you waiting on? Get that suit on and let’s go.”
Conner fell to the sand and kicked his boots off. Stowed the band away. His shirt was already gone, left behind in the Honey Hole with his sister’s blood on it. He pulled the dive suit on. It was big for him and smelled of another man’s sweat. His sister helped him with the zipper, bitched about the sand in it. She gave Conner instructions as she pulled the dive tanks from their racks and cracked the valves.
“It’s been too long to save anyone buried in solid drift,” she told him. “We’re looking for air down there, okay? Any spot of purple, that’s what you aim for. We’ll start here on the edge of town where chances are best. No point in checking every small building, just the intact ones. Anything with an eastward window you can skip. This regulator jams now and then—you have to take it out and knock it against your tank. Can you handle that?”