Nineveh's Child

by Gerhard Gehrke

  She climbed through the building’s far wall and crossed the street. She vaulted a fence, then ducked into another burned structure. The man was behind her cursing at the birds. She had gained some distance, but he was still close. She rounded a corner, but stopped to change direction when she spied a hole just her size in an intact wall. The larger man wouldn’t be able to get through.

  The hole took her into a dark room with an intact ceiling. The smell of smoke hung heavy. It was difficult to breathe. She headed toward the outline of a door and almost ran into a Wally.

  The thing was crouched in the center of the room over a corpse. It was picking meat from a set of exposed ribs. Its slender fingers were covered in blood. It let out a low hiss, not much more than an exhalation.

  Behind her, she heard heavy boots tromping just beyond the hole she had come through. The man stopped. In that short moment, the Wally had drawn a flat piece of metal from an unseen pocket. It spread its arms wide.

  “Not today,” she said. Then she screamed, “In here!”

  Her pursuer didn’t miss a beat. He ran and partially pulled open another door to the room that caught on fallen debris. Light flooded the smoke-filled space. The Wally hissed louder, its attention split between Dinah and the big man now pushing his way inside.

  “Got you!” the man shouted.

  His eyes must have been slow in adjusting to the room’s half-light. He didn’t see the Wally as it sprang toward him. Its blade slashed in an arc, and the man fell back. Blood sprayed into the air. Dinah slipped back out through the hole.

  She heard them fighting behind her, shuffling, a low growl, and a grunt of pain. She got out into the street and ran, all thoughts of stealth abandoned. Instead of heading directly back from where she had come, she made a wide circuit of the village. She saw no one else. Once she made it to the cover of trees, she wound her way back to Michelle’s hiding spot.

  But Michelle wasn’t there.

  ***

  At first Dinah wondered if she was in the wrong place in a different location and thought that she had made a mistake in recognizing the admittedly vague landmarks. The fields and fences of the outer farms all looked alike, as did the many dull green oak trees.

  She relaxed her mind and tried to recall what she had seen after leaving Michelle.

  The first fence she had crossed when heading in had two slats removed in two locations closest to her hiding spot. A large healthy-looking bay tree leaned out over the field. A thick stand of sunbaked poison oak with many bright red leaves grew around a tall stump. And the edge of this field had a few fist-sized chunks of orange-gray chert. She was in the right place.

  Dinah listened for a moment. She didn’t hear anyone. She made a clicking sound like Uma used to do when approaching Billy’s pen.

  “St-st-st-st-st-st! Michelle!”

  No answer.

  Whatever hunters were in town would be after her soon. Whether they knew how to track or had some way of using a device like Gregory had was an unknown she couldn’t risk, and the one Wally wouldn’t slow them down for long.

  With reluctance, she left the rendezvous spot behind and headed into the trees and up the hill. She took a direct route up, which involved some climbing, in the hope that she’d find a vantage point of the village and surrounding area.

  She tried not to think about where Michelle might have gone. Had she heard the commotion and come after her? Dinah felt guilty thinking about how Michelle might have tried to back her up. But she might have fled as well. Or maybe she had been taken. Perhaps the giant bird had finished digesting its latest dog and wanted more to eat, something with the flavor of a full-sized human female. Dinah reminded herself that Michelle wasn’t her responsibility. She was a grown woman.

  The knot in her stomach grew.

  The scramble up the hill proved difficult, but that meant it would be hard for anyone to follow. She was confident that she was moving about as quickly and quietly as possible since she was alone. But being alone was less than ideal, as sleeping was always a challenge. And four eyes were better than two in finding food, even if one pair of eyeballs couldn’t find an edible weed, berry, or bug if her life depended on it, which it did.

  The fog had completely dissolved into a dull haze. The wider but obscured view afforded her by the rise in elevation revealed little beyond the first few farms around the town below. Somewhere past this burned village, more communities were spread throughout the valley. Had the attackers already been to those places? And what about even further north, like the salty lakes where the true hardscrabble living took place?

  Her quest to find her brother back in Nineveh and track down those who burned the farm and took Rosalyn had come to a complete standstill. Now Michelle was missing. Dinah never imagined getting enough food would slow her down so much and be so all-consuming. Her brother would have laughed at the joke.

  Dinah had one jar of fruit still tucked in her arms. She opened it and drank the sweet juice down. She coughed and almost spit it back up, not because it was bad, but because she was drinking it too quickly. The jar held a dozen whitish-green halved fruit chunks. Pears, she decided. With her dirty fingers, she ate all of the fruit. A sugar rush made her feel dizzy. She licked the juice from her lips. She had taken some dried jerky from the house as well. This tasted less than fresh. The oversalted tough-as-leather chewfest might have been some kind of animal flesh at one time, but might also have just been decades-old shoe leather.

  A branch snapped behind her. She spun around and cocked the jar, ready to throw.

  “Dinah?”

  Karl stood there by a tall redwood tree. He wore a broad hat that she had never seen before and had his spear in his hands. His face looked tired and his beard was grayer than before and unkempt. A layer of dust clung to him. He was a sight compared to his usual neat and rugged composure, but then again, she was too.

  “Karl!” She ran to him, and they embraced. Her tears came like a flood. She put her face against his shoulder and sobbed. She tried to say Uma’s name, tried to say something about Rosalyn. He set the spear aside and stroked her head.

  “I know,” he said. “Let it all out.”

  Finally, she managed to speak. “They’re killing everyone.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Did you see a woman? She’s with me. She was waiting for me when I went to see what was going on in town, but now I can’t find her.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t. Is she up here somewhere?”

  “She’s down there.” Dinah felt a flush come over her once she said it. She had left Michelle behind, and this was her confession.

  He offered her a canteen and she took it from him. It felt full. She took a sip, even though she wasn’t really thirsty anymore. Karl looked to be in good shape. Dirty from travel, sure. But he had always known where to get food, and his snares usually caught animals.

  “The hunters saw me,” Dinah said. “They might be following me.”

  “Do you think your friend is still in the town somewhere?”

  She thought for a moment. “She had no food or water. But if you didn’t see her heading this way then yes, she’s down there. At least two of the men, maybe from the same group that attacked the farm, are down there too. And I saw a Wally. But they’re chasing me and found me once, and they’ll come after me again.”

  Karl nodded. “Well, we can’t stay up here forever. Let’s rest up a minute and see if anyone is coming after you. Then we can try to find your friend.”

  ***

  Dinah counted four men. The hunters had one of the trucks she had seen before, a white vehicle with a large enclosed rear big enough to conceal twenty more men. The four lingered around the farm where Dinah had found the mute boy. There was no way to tell if they had discovered his hiding hole or if they had killed him, but at least the house wasn’t burning. Maybe they’re out of matches. Two kept watch, dividing their attention between the hill where Dinah and Karl had concealed th
emselves and the town further down in the valley. They had rifles at the ready.

  She recognized the hobbled figure wearing a long duster. He was the old man that had been with the group Dinah had tracked from Uma’s farm. She had heard him giving orders to the others. Maybe these were all the same ones from before, the ones with Uma’s blood on their hands. They would know where Rosalyn had been taken.

  The hobbled man crouched down in the parched garden. He scooped up a small amount of soil with a spoon or similar utensil and put it in a vial. The fourth man appeared from behind the house, having just relieved himself.

  Karl crouched behind Dinah. They watched the invaders from the shadows of an oak tree. Karl had to steady her, had even tried to get her to lie down for a spell. Their hour-long hike had been easy, but she felt woozy from the day’s exertion and the lack of sleep. Her stomach complained. She was hungry again. Even as she looked down on the murderers, her mind wandered to Uma’s cooking, the cheese, the butter, even the bitter pestled acorn paste Uma sometimes made just to help them appreciate what they might have to eat if life’s other bounties ever dried up.

  “That’s where we found the little boy,” Dinah said.

  “Maybe he won’t get caught. They’re not looking for him.”

  “But who are they looking for? Or what? They seem to be killing everyone.”

  She hadn’t told him about Mike and the hunters at the spring, or her own instincts about who the hunters were ultimately after. And she didn’t even know how to begin explaining the giant dog-eating bird.

  One of the men pointed toward the hill. Not in their direction exactly, but in a line that would take them to where Dinah and Michelle had hiked toward the village. They no doubt had found their tracks from earlier and were following them. If they continued, that would eventually lead them to where she now hid with Karl, but not any time soon and only if their tracking skills were superb. The vehicle would help them move quickly, but it wouldn’t easily make the climb.

  The old man went to their vehicle and opened a side compartment. He put his samples away and locked it up. The three others looked at one another as if sharing a thought. One made a gesture, and they converged on the truck.

  “I think they can talk to each other with radios,” Dinah said. Her tongue felt thick. Her own words sounded slurred.

  “So it seems. If you have pursuers looking for you up in the hills, then they would have to be able to coordinate their search.”

  “I saw some of them a few days ago. Those didn’t seem to carry radios or rifles.”

  “All the ones I’ve seen wear small communication devices on their throats and ears. Not all have rifles.”

  The truck began to drive along the dirt and across the field, heading in the direction of one of the other abandoned homes. Dinah rose but almost fell. She put a hand on the tree. Karl caught her under the arm to support her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Dizzy. “Fine.”

  Dinah managed to push him away. She looked up at him. It was the same Karl, the warm face, the strong arms and broad shoulders, but something was wrong. She looked at the canteen slung across one shoulder. He had given it to her a few times as they hiked, and the water inside had tasted wonderful, cool, and refreshing. The canteen had also been full when he first handed it to her.

  She cleared her throat and asked, “Karl…where did you find your water?”

  Her knees gave out. Karl didn’t let her fall, but lowered her slowly to the ground. He held her head up and brushed the hair from her face. Her jaw tightened. Her lips felt numb.

  “Just be calm,” he said. “No one will hurt you.”

  The world swam in front of her eyes. She tried to focus on Karl, but that required too much effort. When she tried to speak, nothing came out.

  He said something to someone else. His voice sounded distant. She heard him say, “We’ll meet you down there. Come pick me up. Let Nineveh know we have her.”

  With ease, he lifted her from the ground and began to descend the short slope toward the sound of an approaching truck.

  11. Before: Nineveh—Brother and Beast

  “Tell me why it is again that you can’t talk in straight lines?” Dinah asked.

  She stood eye-to-eye with her brother Ruben as he sat back in his wheelchair. A tray with his breakfast waited on a nearby table untouched. She had hurried through her own breakfast in the cafeteria and made it to the library before his teacher came for him. As usual, his nurse had brought him early so he could read on Nineveh’s computer terminals.

  “Why?” she asked again. As soon as she saw his crooked smile, she knew he wouldn’t give her a real answer.

  “It’s all the radiation in the air. The hydrogen, atomic, and neutron bombs that exploded simultaneously worldwide.”

  “Boom,” Dinah said and threw up her hands.

  “The Soviets had an entire arsenal of Super Tsar Bombs. They deployed them with their stealth bombers and dropped them atop every capitalist center in the Western world. Some in the East, too.”

  “You mean Russia. The USSR collapsed.”

  “No, I mean the Soviets. Their entire government just went underground, literally, until the whole democracy movement thing blew over. The Politburo elected four successive premiers while it was waiting, and the whole time they were building more of their bombs. Then, when the balloon went up, whammo!”

  This got her laughing. It was the way his eyebrows arched and his lips curled into diabolical dimples.

  “So that’s why I’m sick. Why you’re sick, why everyone in Nineveh and everyone left outside is sick. Did you know the super-superbugs got out at the same time? They spread throughout the water supplies and into the rice and the sesame seeds of your cheeseburger buns.”

  “I never eat the bun,” she said.

  “That doesn’t matter. The bugs were in the potatoes they turned into your French fries. Do you know how many potatoes were in the standard American diet?”

  “Truckloads.”

  “The bugs thrived on sugar crystals as well. While you were eating your hundred and forty pounds of sugar per year, the bugs got into your gut and set up shop, started homesteading. Like a sodbuster on the Oregon Trail. And then, by some genetic timer, they made themselves known.”

  “Bleeders?”

  She took delight in the expansive gestures he made with his good arm. Whenever he started reaching to one side of the wheelchair to explain some big idea, she could always sidetrack him with the question, “How big was the fish you caught?” But she was too busy laughing to ask that now.

  “Yes, bleeders. People bled out of their butts and mouths.”

  “And eyes?”

  “Yeah, you bet. Red tears galore. A few sequences borrowed from good ol’ Ebola made sure of that. Eyes, nose, black vomit, bloody diarrhea.”

  “Eeewww!”

  “People were like water balloons with holes in them.”

  “That’s disgusting.” But she couldn’t wait for him to go on.

  “So the bugs met up with the radiation. And that meant one thing.”

  “Mutants?”

  He shot her with a finger and clicked his cheek. “Tumors for some. Giant zucchini for others. And shih tzus with fangs and venom. Giant insects that could take down a jumbo jet.”

  “Dragons?”

  “Maybe one day. But this is science, not fantasy. So no telepathic dogs or killer rabbits. But plenty of carnivorous plants with a taste for human flesh. Plants that would suck on you for days on end like you were a lollipop. And do you know what they do once they’ve drunk you dry?”

  She shook her head.

  “Spit you out like you’re a dirty gym sock. Your once-moist skin would be semi-dissolved and sticky from their enzymes. Your eyeballs will have melted out in the first few hours, assuming you had any eyes left from all of the flashes from the bombs. Hopefully, you’d be dead from all the toxins, and from shock, and maybe even from dehydration, but not ne
cessarily. Then the plants have their subservient rats clean up around their roots so more prey will fall into their nefarious trap.”

  She scrunched up her face and thought for a moment. “But how do the plants talk to the rats?”

  He shrugged. “Telepathy.”

  “But I thought you said there wasn’t any such thing.”

  “Okay, Miss Smarty-Pants, so maybe the plants secrete some kind of cross-kingdom pheromone. Maybe they just leave the rats alone, and the rats don’t chew on their stalks in return. Maybe they’re all smart enough to have worked out some kind of post-fall-of-humanity treaty with a codicil that addresses just that. I don’t have all the answers.”

  She almost jumped when Ruben’s teacher appeared. “You certainly don’t have all the answers, Ruben,” the teacher said. “Although you think you do. Playtime is over. Time for your exercises. A special class today.”

  “But Ruben hasn’t had his breakfast,” Dinah said with a whine.

  “He should have thought of that when he was telling you about his imaginary bombs,” the teacher said. She undid the brake of the wheelchair and pushed him back toward what he called the war room. Work, he called it. They called it exercise. Which was it?

  He leaned out of his chair as he was being wheeled away. A finger went in one nostril, and a tongue came out.

  “Mutant!” he called her.

  “Freak!” she shouted back.

  ***

  For the record, she didn’t choose the Beast, and he certainly didn’t choose her.

  The morning had started so well. Spending time with Ruben left her in a good mood that she knew wouldn’t last, yet she held out hope that it would even as she headed to class. Some surprise quizzes would pop that day, as Dr. Hel’s pocket planner had told her. She had actually studied trig ratios of quadrant angles the night before. They would feature on one of the bonus questions that Dr. Hel would give Dinah and no one else. None of her fellow students would have gotten any of them right. That was why Dinah had one-on-one classes so often. But this wasn’t one of those days.