The sign hanging out front appeared to be in surprisingly good condition. “Papa Abe’s,” the sign read. Above the scripted letters was the faded rough line drawing of a man with a spoon and a bowl. Maybe he was stirring. Maybe he was about to ladle up a dollop of something gooey and tasty. Whoever Papa Abe was, he looked happy enough, and she bet this place was happy once, too. But the space between the walls held nothing but rubble.
If someone had once cooked waffles and eggs in this husk, those aromas were long gone. The air smelled of dust. Also of smoke from a distant fire, something she had been noticing all morning. The memory of the farm in ashes was all too fresh. She pushed the thought of Uma’s dead eyes from her head and focused on the now.
The head-high brown lines on the sheet rock in Papa Abe’s dining room gave evidence to how high the water had once been. She ran a finger along it, scraping up a powdered streak of dead mold. Colored thumbtacks were stuck in one wall with torn scraps of photos still attached. She found a warped photo in an intact plastic sleeve on the floor under a collapsed steel counter. Three children all seated upon a pony smiled up at her. She put the photo back where she found it.
She stepped out through the front door and looked up at the gray sky. It didn’t look like it would rain. It didn’t look like it would do much of anything. “Don’t bank on the weather,” Aunt Uma would say. She had always prepared for the worst, but it hadn’t saved her.
She felt no breeze, though. If anything bad was brewing, it would give signs before it showed up.
Weeds grew tall along the outer wall of the diner. She sifted through the low greens, but none looked good. She found some chicory growing tall and she yanked it up, roots and all. She folded the stalks up and placed them in her satchel.
She heard something and dropped into a crouch. Her fingers went to a broken piece of concrete, hand sized, small enough to throw, big enough to serve as a head cracker. The sound had come from down the street. The avenue was wide, with broken asphalt busted up into peaks and valleys. Plenty of places for someone to hide.
It was probably rats. People didn’t live here. The two-story buildings that lined the street were all tilted or fallen in on themselves. None had roofs. She hadn’t seen any signs of improvements when she’d scouted out the town. If anyone called this place home, there would be signs of things hunted and killed, evidence of cook fires, and the telltale aromas of human waste.
People were such pigs, and few of them knew enough to bury their waste and trash. Aunt Uma said that the Good Book told them to do just that, so Dinah did, if for no other reason than to keep anyone from knowing that she was around.
But certain people were good at staying undetected and undetectable. They slept in well-concealed lairs. They left no traces of their meals. They buried their waste. And some didn’t bother with cook fires.
The Wallys were like that, not only sneaky but vicious, and there had been tales of Wally sightings. The stories could mostly be dismissed, but not all of them. Every time someone went missing or a pig got ripped apart in its pen, folks blamed good ol’ Wally. But that didn’t mean Wallys weren’t really out there.
If a Wally had made the sound she had heard, it had intended for her to hear it. Which meant that if she crouched here listening and watching, it had her right where it wanted her.
She looked behind her.
There, in the shadow of a broken building with the remains of its yellow stucco still clinging to its wall, was a bent-double figure with gray arms held out to either side as if it were balancing itself. A cowl covered its head. As the story went, Wallys didn’t like the sun, but that didn’t stop them from coming out whenever they wanted, especially when there was something to eat.
She didn’t want to be its next meal.
The shape froze. They watched each other. She moved first, diving through one of Papa Abe’s empty window frames. She slid across a booth table and ran. She didn’t hear anything behind her, but knew the Wally was there, no doubt about it.
Things looked tight in the kitchen. Debris blocked her path. The upstairs had become the downstairs. She was left with two choices: dive under the ruined second floor and risk the chance of hitting a dead end, or climb and know that this would leave her exposed. The thought of being stuck in an enclosed space with a Wally left her no choice.
She climbed. She wasn’t tall like her stepsister Rosalyn, but she could jump and had arm strength from working six years at the farm. Enough exposed rotted wood provided plenty of handholds. There was little left of what had been a modest apartment above Abe’s Diner, mostly decomposing timber and piles of muck that had once been carpet. A few patches of green moss grew along one prominent support beam. She clambered up one steep incline of soft wood. Her feet began to slide out from under her on the slick moss. She grabbed a pipe. It held.
From the corner of her eye she saw the Wally emerge from a hole in a wall just underneath her. Its long fingers just missed her ankles as she pulled herself up. More plumbing gave her feet a place to go, and she made it to the top of the opposite wall. She vaulted over without knowing what was on the other side.
Her feet found a high pile of rubble. Her landing triggered a small avalanche of debris, and she rode it down. She hit the ground running. Shoulder-high grass and weeds smacked her with a surprising amount of resistance. Thistles clung to her sleeves and pants. Pampas grass cut at her face and hands as she pushed the thin leaves aside. Mud sucked at her feet and threatened to pull her shoes from her. But she didn’t stop.
She hoped that she was lighter than the Wally because if she was having a hard time slogging through the field, it would too.
No sounds followed her, no footfalls, no snapping of grasses under feet, no bellows of rage. She didn’t feel certain of having evaded her pursuer until she reached her bolt-hole some two miles distant. Here, underneath the least interesting weed-infested slab of concrete, she climbed inside her rabbit’s den to catch her breath.
She willed her breathing to slow. Her lungs burned, and sweat and dirt stung her eyes. She closed them and began to count upwards using all the prime numbers she had in her head. She next moved on to long division of various random numbers, and then set out to recall how many times she had cleared her throat since breakfast. All of this eventually calmed her down. She knew that she would certainly die in this little dead-end hole if the Wally had kept up. But she heard nothing outside, so she stopped worrying.
The spot wouldn’t do for long. She knew she should go, as she had slept there the prior night. But the scant findings of the past day, the narrow escape from the Wally, and the disappointment of once again not finding any trace of her brother left her exhausted. She fell asleep.
3. Before: The Farm
Her room in the farmhouse had rough-spun curtains that moved whenever the wind blew. There was no glass, only shutters, and these had to be left open to dispel the previous day’s heat. The air inside her bedroom always felt warm even in those early hours of the morning, as warm as Nineveh’s greenhouse.
Most mornings started the same way, not with a chime but with Aunt Uma waking her before dawn. A creak of floorboards at the top of the stairs always signaled her approach. Sometimes Dinah pretended to still be asleep, but that didn’t matter to Uma. Except for the shifting of the wooden floor, her soft moccasins made no sounds as she went to the window and closed the shutters. She was a gray shadow moving through Dinah’s room. If Dinah wanted light, she had to go downstairs.
“Time to get up,” Uma said.
Dinah pulled the blanket over her head. “Mmmtired.”
Uma snapped the blanket off her. Dinah shrieked. It wasn’t a full-throated I’m-about-to-be-murdered scream but a surprised-I-just-don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed cry of disappointment. It hadn’t taken long for her to grow accustomed to the house, the bed, and not being confined within the walls of the redoubt. Physical work made her tired, and she needed all the sleep she could get.
“Dress,” Uma said. “
Wash. Eat. Goats.”
Dinah pulled on her long wool shirt and her hide pants that went down to her shins. Her latest growth spurt gave her clothes little chance to keep up, even though she was still shorter than her stepsister Rosalyn, despite being about the same age. The old redoubt jumpsuit Dinah had arrived in was long outgrown.
“You can’t leave the shutters open,” Uma said. “You let the flies in again.”
Dinah hadn’t seen any flies. “But it’s hot.”
“It’ll be hotter if you have to share a room with your sister. Now wash up.”
She walked downstairs. Several candles burned, illuminating the steps and the dining table. Her stepsister Rosalyn and Uncle Karl were already up and eating, which meant the washroom was free. It also meant that the washroom water was dirty with no chance of drawing more. She went to the dining table and looked at the biscuits, butter, and cheese set out for breakfast. She reached for a biscuit.
“Uma!” Rosalyn said. “Dinah isn’t taking her bath.”
“Don’t be a snitch,” Dinah hissed.
Karl ignored them. He had a book open and was squinting hard in the candlelight, his face close to one of the pages. His lips moved as he read, switching gears momentarily to chew at whatever was in his mouth. A half-eaten giant biscuit was in one hand, slathered in butter and with a large chunk bitten out of it. Dinah wondered which book he was reading. He usually left them for her once he was finished, and would often trade with the valley people for new ones. The book selection at Uma’s farm was nothing like Nineveh’s library, but Dinah devoured whatever she could lay her hands on.
From upstairs Uma called, “Dinah, take your bath!”
Dinah glared at Rosalyn. Rosalyn met her gaze, and a mean smile crossed her face. Whether she was wallowing in her minor triumph or it was a promise of later torments to come, only the day could tell.
Dinah stepped into the washroom and closed the door. The cramped room had a toilet, a flush bucket, and a standing basin with a ladle on the floor next to it. Several damp rags hung on pegs on the wall. A few dry ones were folded on a shelf along with a bar of soap. The basin held a few gallons of brown water that would be ankle deep once she stepped in. The water would go into the flush bucket once Dinah was finished. Nineveh’s hot showers were but a distant memory.
4. Bird
A palmful of berries made for a decent enough breakfast, but her stomach still growled. Even the various birds singing and screeching at one another couldn’t distract her from the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything of substance in three days. Finding her brother would have to wait. She needed to find food.
She gathered up her blanket and bundled everything up into her pack. Sleeping on the cold ground left her stiff. She stretched some, but the shivers had a hold on her. Her hair had made it out of her hairband; it was just long enough to tie back, so she took a moment to do so. Her bottle had enough water for a few more swallows but not enough to wash the dirt from her hands and face. Finding more was as much of a challenge as catching game. The day was wasting. She needed to move.
The snares she had set the night before were empty. A cursory search revealed small tracks making convenient detours around each wire loop. After collecting her fifth and final empty trap, it began to feel as if some unknown entity had set out warning signs warding off her potential lunch.
Setting out snares was a numbers game. She needed to make more for a better chance of success. Small collections of dark droppings lay scattered among the weeds. They appeared moist, thus fresh. Rabbit poop. Perhaps her snares had been set too small, as she had only seen squirrels the previous day.
She checked the sky and saw the sun would be up in the next fifteen minutes. She would forage for an hour. She set out sifting through undergrowth with two objectives: find more berries and edibles, and locate a good piece of wood for a rabbit stick. Karl had drilled it into her head that finding food always took much longer than expected. Graze as you go.
A few clumps of sour grass made for easy pickings when desperate. These would be better saved for a stew or boiled, but she chewed on the bitter leaves like a goat. Her stomach lurched in protest as she swallowed whatever moisture she could from the plants. She spat out the pulp.
Several dead and downed branches proved too light and dry for her stick. Finally, she settled on one that would do nicely with a bit of whittling. It had a slight bend to it and was the length of her arm from her middle finger down to her elbow.
She pulled out her short knife and hacked off as many high knots as possible to give her stick a fighting chance at being streamlined enough to fly true. She tested its heft. Still too light. She’d keep an eye out for an upgrade as she began to hunt.
Morning was normally a good time to spot rabbits. With the sun to her back she found a small meadow and waited. Not enough light came through the trees above to cast a shadow, and the sun would be in the eyes of any prey. She heard birds continue their calls. A slight breeze picked up, sending her back into shivers and raising small bumps on her flesh. This was an ideal place and the perfect moment for a rabbit to appear, but nothing came. An hour passed, and she could now see the sun’s rays piercing the morning mist. She would be warmer if she got into the sunlight. She tried to wait another hour, but she was too cold.
“Come on out, rabbits,” she muttered, but none obeyed.
She stood and stretched her back. Movement caught her attention, and she turned to confront the fattest squirrel she had ever seen. This was a monster. She could imagine this porker with its fat sizzling on a campfire, could taste its acorn-fed flesh in her mouth. She raised her stick and sprang forward.
In the key moment when she needed to move quickly, her left leg seized with a cramp and locked up. It felt like all her limbs were made of wood. She had spent too long in one position, and the cold had done its trick. The squirrel didn’t wait as she stumbled out from her hiding place. It leaped over and around several bushes and vaulted up a tree as if no longer bound by gravity. In the second it took her to regain her stance and cock her stick-throwing arm, the squirrel was long gone.
***
Whatever had left the paw prints was alone. Perhaps it was young and lost, or old and cast out. Maybe it was a young dog looking for a pack to join. She followed the marks through ever-thickening grasses toward a copse of oak trees. She placed one foot down at a time. Lightly. Slowly. Better a crunch than a snap. Better a feather on the ground than a crunch. Uma, for being an aging, stocky auntie, had taught her the stalking game well.
She came to a break between a split tree and waited and watched. A shaded gully ran in either direction. This might once have been a stream, but no water had run this way in years. She spotted more of the tracks in the dirt near some mud. She now knew that a dog had done some digging around the base of some rocks. Reeds grew tall here. There was water not too far down. But the dog had stopped digging, had leaped across the gully.
If she had no other prospects, she’d dig there, too. Even a few sips of muddy water were precious. But for the moment, she followed the dog tracks. She moved tree to tree, pausing in shadows, trying to memorize the curtain of forest in front of her so she would notice if anything moved. Nothing did.
When a dun mongrel emerged from a patch of yellow weeds, she was so startled she almost broke cover. It wasn’t very large and didn’t have much meat on its bones. It sniffed at the dirt. Its ears were up, but it didn’t look in her direction. Once upon a time, she would have wanted a dog just like this to feed and cherish and play with. That was how you thought of the upper world when you lived underneath it and believed what you saw in the picture books.
She adjusted the grip on her rabbit stick. She would throw it if the dog ran, but she needed to get closer for an effective shot.
Something else moved in the gloom. The dog’s attention remained fixed on the ground. Dinah heard nothing, but then she realized that what she had mistaken for a hung-up fallen branch was a tall shadowed figure. Whatever it w
as had a long, spindly neck and a tiny head that jerked side to side. The head paused momentarily, then dipped down in the dog’s direction as if sniffing the air. The dog’s ears perked up, but too late: the thing in the shadows sprang forward.
A giant bird landed squarely on the dog’s back. The bird’s head pecked down on the dog’s head three times. Dinah heard a clack-clack-clack, the sound of a hammer breaking a thick clay pot. The dog twitched and lay still.
The bird quickly looked up and around. It paused, gazing in Dinah’s direction. She froze, willing herself not to breathe or even think loud thoughts. The bird’s beak was covered in blood. Apparently satisfied that the area was secure, it proceeded to tear into the dog’s corpse. Perhaps the bird hadn’t noticed her. Maybe it didn’t care that she was watching it feed.
Her rabbit stick felt inadequate. She let out a slow exhale and backed away into the shadows, as hungry as ever.
***
The giant bird was following her. What discouraged her even more was that it didn’t care that she knew. It walked heedlessly over the dry vegetation under the nearby oak trees, punctuating her every move with the snaps and pops of dead leaves.
Next came a melodic warble, a deep-throated trio of notes running together. The giant killer mutant bird thing sounded closer than before. She ran.
She made her way to a steep slope that descended into an overgrown ravine. She started to lower herself down carefully, making certain of each handhold and foothold. The bird made a sound somewhere above her. Too close. But it was still a long way to the bottom. She didn’t want to break a leg, but she also didn’t want to get her skull smashed in.
She let herself slide, putting one foot straight out and keeping the other knee bent. This would have worked if the ground was smooth soil or sand and the grade of the slope was even, but jutting rocks blocked her path. She didn’t want to hit them at full speed. Would her final act in life be to gracelessly cartwheel down a cliff only to lay broken like a rag doll on the dirt below so that some monster bird could eat her brains?
Nineveh's Child Page 3