Nineveh's Child

by Gerhard Gehrke

  It was me he was after.

  Why was so much effort being made to locate her? She had left Nineveh so long ago. She knew nothing about the place anymore, had taken nothing of significance. The only thing about her old home she even missed was her brother Ruben, and his health had been so bad that he might already be dead. Even the cat had no doubt outlived him, by sheer orneriness.

  But if Ruben was still alive, she had to know. Would these people take her there? And where had they taken Rosalyn? Fighting the drug in her system felt like it would bring on a headache. She tried to remain calm, to breathe…

  Hunters came up to the back of the truck and looked inside. There were five of them, with hats and long coats and knives in sheaths. Some wore bandoleers replete with ammunition or the wicked crossbow bolts. Karl followed along, standing a head taller than any of them. She couldn’t see his face, but the hunters were clearly excited. They nudged each other and slapped backs and nodded. Two of them wore goggles with silver lenses that shined with the remaining evening light. Was this the last thing Uma saw before she was murdered, her own reflection in the eyes of her killers?

  “Well, finally, brothers,” Gregory said. “Let’s have a look at what all our trouble has been about.”

  He got up into the back and unlocked the cage. When he opened the door and reached in, Dinah kicked at his hands with all her might. But she was still weak and slow, and the blow did nothing. He grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her out, sending her tumbling. She landed on the ground in the middle of them. Her arms and legs didn’t do enough to minimize the impact. She ate dirt.

  “Leave her alone!” Michelle shouted.

  Gregory pushed his hat back so it hung by a chin cord, revealing a ring of pink skin above his brow that stood in sharp contrast to the grime on the rest of his face. He took out his device and grabbed the back of Dinah’s neck. She felt pressure as he pressed the gadget into her hair.

  “Is the tech necessary, brother?”

  “We must be certain,” Gregory said.

  “Is it her?” asked a female hunter. “Doesn’t seem worth the bother.” She prodded Dinah with a boot.

  “It’s her, brothers and sisters,” Gregory said with a nod. “It’s her.”

  They whooped and laughed.

  With a scream, Michelle dove out of the truck and tackled Gregory. Somehow she had gotten her hands free. She landed on top of him and began to punch his face. He let out a girlish squeal and screamed, “Get her off of me!”

  The laughter just intensified. None of them raised a hand to help. Gregory tried to swat Michelle off but couldn’t. She was relentless. She hammered at his face with her fists. Something popped. Blood began to fly. Her thumbs tried to squeeze his eyes, but his goggles saved him. She twisted at the bandanna around his neck, and he started to gag.

  “That’s enough of that,” the old man said.

  Karl grabbed Michelle by an arm and pulled her up off Gregory. She kicked at the downed man as she was drawn away. Her entire body trembled with rage. She was breathing hard and her fists were split and bleeding. She spat. Then she tried to bite Karl, but he grabbed both of her arms and held her fast.

  It took Gregory a moment to get up. None of his companions helped. He cleared his mouth of blood and took a moment to loosen the constricting bandanna and his hat’s chin strap. A river of red seeped from his nose. He took off his goggles and dropped them to the dirt, and considered Michelle.

  “You murderer!” she screamed.

  Michelle struggled in Karl’s grip, but Karl wasn’t letting go.

  Gregory dabbed blood from his leaking nose with a cloth. He turned toward the old man. “So we have her. She’s the one, isn’t she? The device doesn’t lie, does it?”

  The old man nodded. His large dark goggles revealed little of his face, and he was bundled up as if he was cold. To Dinah, all of the hunters appeared overdressed.

  Gregory pointed at Michelle. “That means we don’t need her.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Michelle hissed. She kicked at him.

  “The very thought disgusts me.”

  He pulled something from his belt. It looked like a knife but was thinner than any blade, like a rod of silver. Before Michelle could react, he grabbed her wrist and jabbed her in the forearm. She let out a short cry and her head kicked back, almost knocking Karl in the teeth. Karl let go of her, and she collapsed. She fell into a heap, trembling. A gagging sound followed. After a moment, she lay still.

  “No!” Dinah screamed. She tried to get up, her arms flailing. Gregory knocked her aside with a quick slap. He was raising his hand for a second blow when Karl caught him by the wrist. The two men glared at each other. Karl was clearly the stronger of the two, and he pushed Gregory’s arm away.

  “She will not be harmed,” the old man said.

  Dinah crawled over to Michelle. She felt her neck and listened for her breath. Michelle had no pulse, and foam trickled from her lips. Information flooded Dinah’s head on what could be done, memories of things read. A rhythm of chest compressions, steady, hard, fast. She stacked her palms on Michelle’s breastbone.

  Karl put a hand on her shoulder. “That won’t work. It’s a poison.”

  “Why?” She twisted away from Karl’s hand.

  Gregory stood just behind Karl, the rod still in his hand.

  I can grab it.

  But he slid the weapon back into a pocket on his belt.

  She took one of Michelle’s hands and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let you come with me.”

  There was an odd silence as the other hunters just stood in a circle around her. She looked up at them all and at Karl, trying to see their faces and burn them into her memory. The hunters didn’t seem affected by the murder. Karl had a look of shame and sadness, and she hated him more than all the rest.

  Karl put out a hand. “Dinah…” he started to say.

  The old man looked thin and he swayed slightly, as if he was already going to fall over without any help. None of the others stood close to him. He was the weakest point in the circle. She rushed him. She tried to clip him low in the legs to knock him down, but when she collided with him it was like running into a steel beam. He shifted back one step and she fell to the ground, pain washing over her arm and shoulder.

  “Enough of this,” the old man said. He grabbed her by the wrist. There was no give to his grip. Two of the other men took her from him and restrained her hands behind her back with some kind of plastic loop. She was returned to the truck and unceremoniously locked back up in the cage. The door rattled as she kicked it, but she was spent. She lay there, waited, and listened.

  ***

  They didn’t go anywhere. She heard more vehicles arrive and more of the hunters talking. The old man was out there among them. He sounded upset and impatient as he repeatedly shouted at the hunters, but they weren’t following his orders. The gathering outside sounded strangely joyous. Greetings and laughter filled the evening air and echoed though the truck’s cramped compartment.

  What felt like hours passed, and the party only grew in intensity. She tried not to think about Michelle, who was either lying dead just outside the truck or had been carried back to the center of town and thrown on one of the fires, or left for the birds.

  At least the Wallys killed for food, if the stories were true.

  The back of the truck opened. Bright lights from a pair of flashlights hurt her eyes, and she could only see silhouettes.

  “See? I told you,” one of them said.

  “Is that really her?”

  “Yup.”

  “So we did it,” a woman said. “We got her.”

  They slapped hands in congratulations like they had just won at a team sport. They reeked of sweat.

  “Go away,” Dinah said, her throat too hoarse to shout.

  The hunters just laughed. The flashlight played over her eyes. She knew where this was going. She’d seen Rosalyn with her trapped rats. She was
going to suffer.

  “Still, I don’t see what the fuss is all about,” the woman said. “She looks filthy. She’s unclean like everything else out here.”

  “Don’t you remember your homilies?” asked one of the men. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of what’s on the inside,” the woman said. “It’s all red and guts and excrement. I’m sure she’s just more of the same.”

  There came muted agreement. Dinah tucked her head in her arms to shut out the light.

  “You’ve had your look,” Karl said from behind them. “Now go away.”

  The hunters muttered to themselves as they shuffled away, taking their lights with them.

  “It looks like we’ll be here for the night. I brought you some food.”

  Hearing his voice made her breath come up short. Her throat tightened. She wouldn’t be able to speak if she wanted to.

  “I know this is unimaginably hard for you, and I have no way to explain what’s happening. All she can say is I’m sorry, Dinah.”

  He stepped up into the back of the truck and pushed a silver bag between the bottom bars of the cage. The pouch let out a wisp of steam that smelled like some kind of stew. He put a plastic fork down on top of the bag. Her stomach betrayed her by choosing that moment to rumble audibly.

  “You might be malnourished, and you’re no doubt hungry. You need to eat something. I’ll bring some water in a minute.”

  “Why are you with them?” she managed to ask.

  Karl sighed. “What they’re doing was always a possibility. I knew them and thought they could be delayed indefinitely, but I was wrong. They came sooner and faster than I ever thought possible, and I never expected they’d get past certain obstacles to get this far.”

  “Obstacles? Like murdering everyone? What did Michelle ever do? Or her husband? Or anyone in this village? They’re all dead for no reason! And you’re helping them!”

  “Dinah, they took steps that were more extreme than any I could have ever imagined. This isn’t what I wanted, but I might still be able to redirect them, maybe stop their progress. But for right now, they hold the power. It will just take time.”

  “Wiping out families isn’t a step, it’s just murder.” She had no more spit to swallow. The aroma of the food mixed with the burning smell that still wafted in from the town was confusing her strained senses. Her stomach gave a squeeze, and she began to gag.

  “‘Radical measures’ is the term you’re looking for.” The old man approached, holding an electric lantern that radiated a cool blue light. Gregory followed right behind. “Radical means more than just ‘to an extreme degree.’ It comes from a word meaning ‘to uproot.’ That means taking out all that is sick, from top to bottom, from stem to stern, from budding blossom down to the fibrous roots. That’s what is necessary; that’s what is taking place.”

  Gregory looked up at Karl. “You shouldn’t be here, either. She’s not yours to look after anymore.”

  Karl held his ground for a moment before turning and walking away into the darkness.

  The old man flexed one of his hands and massaged the wrist as if it was cramped. “You’ll be staying put tonight inside the cage. Gregory here has been charged with caring for your every need. He may not be the conversationalist that our friend Karl is, but he knows how to follow instructions.”

  Gregory got a pat on the shoulder, a similar gesture to the one Mike had given his dog. They’re all dogs. Where was her dog-killing bird when she needed it?

  “I’ll be in the cab,” the old man said. He handed Gregory the lantern. “Wake me when this ridiculous ceremony is over.”

  His gait was awkward as he strode away, as if his body was twisted underneath his bulky clothes. Each step landed heavily.

  Now it was just Gregory and her. He smiled at her, his face inscrutable behind the silver goggles.

  13. Before: Nineveh

  Silence was a luxury within Nineveh.

  Trembling pipes reverberated through the walls. She heard the hiss of flowing steam when in her bedroom and bathroom and everywhere else, as that was the lifeblood of what powered the complex, at least as she understood it. The hard tile floor carried the sounds of echoing footsteps moving up and down the hallways. Hydraulic door closers slammed the heavy steel doors to the stairwells, and the elevators whined. Much of the time, these noises fell into the background, like the slow drip of her bathroom’s faucet. Other times, like today, even the faint clicks of machinery and the flushing toilets and squeaking chairs of the other students in the neighboring rooms felt like blasts of thunder, until her head echoed with an ever-increasing crescendo of bang, BANG, BANG!

  But she found comfort in the certainty of all the racket. It was predictable.

  For instance, she knew Dr. Mephisto would visit her that morning when she didn’t show up for class. Most of his attention remained focused on Ruben, but Dinah’s absence from an independent study session wouldn’t slide. So it was no surprise when she heard footsteps stop outside her room.

  She had a small frosted window in the door, but had covered it with tape. He knocked and entered without waiting for an answer. The lights came on. She pulled the sheets over her head. Her eyeballs felt swollen in their sockets, and the parts of her brain behind her forehead were filled with broken glass.

  “We’re not up,” Dr. Mephisto said.

  Dinah couldn’t bear the thought of moving, let alone opening her eyes. The edges of light that pushed in through the sheets and her eyelids made it feel like a sun had just risen in her room.

  “Puh…please,” Dinah managed, but she couldn’t continue.

  “Hmmm. We are having a headache, I see.”

  She heard him set something down on the nightstand. Next came the clinking of bottles and a plastic container opening.

  “Diet,” he said. “Exercise. You must take your vitamins. Then we will feel better in the morning when we are needed, yes?”

  Cool hands took her arm. She didn’t fight them. She felt a swab in the crook of her elbow and then the sharp prick of a needle.

  “But there, there. That is why you have me. I will care for you. You have your lapses. But so much suffering could be avoided if you would only listen.”

  He continued to talk, and she barely followed a word of what he was saying. His tone was soothing enough. But the silky warmth that came next was sheer bliss. Her brain felt like it just had a pressure valve opened and it was releasing trapped air. Maybe her head was a balloon.

  So why hadn’t it popped yet?

  She didn’t care to know the answer. A numbness traveled across her lips and up her face. Now it felt like a heavy blanket had been placed over her. She would sleep.

  But the doctor pulled the sheets from the bed and out of her grip, leaving her lying there in her pajamas. She moaned. The unwelcome light still bothered her, although it was now just an annoyance. The room didn’t feel cold. Like everything else in the redoubt, the temperature was unremarkable and comfortable. Yet all she wanted was her bed for another few moments.

  “Now up!” the doctor ordered. “Medicine is for you to be able to rise and face the day!”

  Her mouth felt like it had cotton in it and opening her eyes took effort. She pushed herself up. The thin doctor was smiling at her. The collar on his once-starched white shirt was open. He wore a white lab coat with stains. His white skin seemed to glow in contrast to his drab clothing. The bags under his eyes were pronounced and dark. Dr. Mephisto never slept, as far as she could tell.

  “Will you need help washing?” he asked.

  She wobbled and almost lost her balance getting up. “I’m fine.”

  She shut herself in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The faucet was still dripping. She knew she should tell maintenance about it, but she wouldn’t. She had one red eye from a burst blood vessel from several days before.

  Outside, the doctor tapped his pen against his clipboard. He would start pacing next
.

  She took her shower. She must have lingered too long in the warm jet of water, as she still had soap in her hair when it shut off, the automatic timer engaging without warning. She would get no more that day.

  She watched the last of the water swirl down the drain.

  “Do I have to get the nurse?” Dr. Mephisto asked through the door.

  “No,” she grumbled.

  She rinsed the rest of the soap from her hair in the sink, then toweled off. She had the good doctor step outside in the hallway before she left the bathroom.

  From outside, he said, “I noticed you had a cat in your room. I recommend against it.”

  “Why?”

  “You may have allergies. They smell. And they have fleas.”

  She was feeling too good from the shot to argue. But from that moment forward she would let the Beast in whenever he wanted.

  14. Ceremony

  The hunters were lighting a fire and making a lot of noise doing it. Dinah could make out some of what they were doing out in the twilight as she watched their dark shapes drag wood and bundles of hay and anything else inflammable to the center of the field. Her view was only partially obstructed by the confines of the truck’s cargo space. Soon groups of them carried large beams taken from nearby homes. These were leaned high against the rest of the stacked wood and hay. All of this was put to the torch, the flames quickly devouring the dry center and igniting the heavier wood. Even more fuel was thrown on top of it all, and soon a heavy line of smoke rose into the new night.

  She thought they would have had enough fire and destruction for one day.

  Then they gathered. She had seen the men and women of the valley make bonfires, around which they would drink and dance and generally have a good time, either in celebration of a rare bounty or in defiance of another failed harvest. Karl had told her that some of the anti-technology combines held parties where old computers and other electronics would be joyfully trashed and thrown into a blazing slag heap. But when the hunters brought up their flame, their earlier hooting and hollering was replaced with silence as they stood and stared into the pulsing orange light. She could hear the irregular snaps and pops of the fire consuming its fuel.