The Umbral Wake

by Martin Kee

  Beth backed away. They reminded her of spider legs, too many joints. Fine hooks and wiry hairs touched the ground. Some limbs fell outside the shadows. They shriveled, turning to ash.

  Her palms sweating, she spun on her heel. The fence seemed impossibly far away now, a white ribbon across a sea of shadow. Standing in her way, a wiry figure, its body no thicker than her arm. Its legs bent in all different directions. Its eyes and mouth were nothing more than holes through which the alley could still be seen. Beth thought it might have even been perfectly flat.

  It raised one of several limbs, unfurling with spidery grace, a finger from a wide flat hand. It touched her shoulder.

  Beth jumped at the tingling sensation, a tickle, a weak electrical vibration. Below her shoulder she saw only an empty sleeve. An arm lay on the ground a few feet away. She could see the round circle of bone and meat. It reminded her of a Christmas ham. Only this meat was her own.

  Blood gushed from her shoulder, spilling through the loose sleeve and onto the severed arm there on the concrete, blood, black as oil in the gas lamplight. It was only then that Beth noticed the pain.

  The finger lashed out again. She opened her mouth, but realized that she no longer had lungs with which to scream.

  Chapter 43

  Rhinewall

  “ARE YOU SURE this is a good idea?” Gary asked, his eyes darting nervously around the alley below. Scribble felt it too, feeling naked and exposed there on the little wooden landing. Below, the stairs to Harold’s apartment spiraled around and down the wall of the curio store. “What if he arrests us?”

  He won’t, Scribble thought. I know he won’t. I just know it in my bones.

  He knocked again. There was no answer. A drizzly rain had begun to settle on the city, drenching the two boys thoroughly. Scribble shivered in the cold and knocked again. This time Gary gently nudged him aside.

  “We’re gonna be seen,” he whispered.

  Scribble frowned, but backed away from the door. Headlights of carriages rolled past along the streets below. Gary was right. They couldn’t afford to wait for the man to come home.

  Gary pulled a small pick from his pocket. “It belonged to Hetch... I know how to use it, sorta.”

  The pick rattled into the lock, and Gary worked it around in the keyhole until there was a click as the door swung open. Outside the alleyway grew brighter as the slipped inside and Gary closed the door. Scribble felt in the dark for a light switch, his finger fumbling along the wall, finding the switch, and pressing. The room lit up and he caught his breath.

  “I don’t think anyone saw us,” Gary said, looking through the curtains. “But that car is getting closer. Maybe it’s the owner?”

  But Scribble wasn’t looking outside anymore. He stared, slack-jawed at the walls of a gallery. Every one of his drawings, from portraits to crude sketches, hung flattened throughout the tiny apartment. Some hung in frames, some with labels. They covered the far wall, kitchen, and hallway, as dense as wallpaper, each straightened and presented with a curator’s care.

  “Wow!” Gary whispered. “Hey! Aren’t these all yours?”

  Scribble nodded. He didn’t even remember drawing so many. But here they were, a monument to his survival, a museum of art by a boy who couldn’t even speak or read.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a while,” Gary said, pointing at the dead plants in the corner. He went to the pantry and dug out a bag of crackers. He offered it to Scribble, who shook his head. “Suit yourself.”

  The drawings stretched all the way down the hall and into the solitary bedroom, drawings of crows, seagulls, people, vehicles, clocks, buildings, trees, landscapes. Some he remembered from the notebook Emil had torn up, while others he barely even remembered drawing. His life’s work was there, even sketches he hadn’t given to Harold at all, hocked instead to bakeries in exchange for loaves of bread. But that was before they had begun associating him with the boy gangs. Most had been tossed into the garbage afterwards. But even those were displayed, flattened and pressed, accented with the brown and yellow discolorations of refuse. Harold had collected every single one, stains and all.

  Scribble reached up to scratch his nose, finding his hand wet with tears. The images blurred, then doubled behind the veil of his weeping, the sounds of Gary barely audible in the front room—the voices of men distant and—

  Men were in the house!

  “Look what I found!” said a deep voice.

  Scribble dove into the nearest doorway, crawling under a bed as dishes broke in the kitchen. A scuffle erupted, and Gary cried out as another man laughed.

  “Gang kids are getting bold,” the man mused. “Never seen ‘em go for someplace this far out of their territory.”

  “I didn’t even know there were still any running loose,” said the other.

  “I didn’t steal nothing,” Gary yelled at them. “I just wanted some food.”

  “We got plenty of food for you where you’re going,” grumbled a man. “Get him in the car. I’ll go collect Mr. Montegut’s things.”

  Heavy steps echoed down the hallway as the man grabbed framed pictures from the wall. Scribble pushed himself further to the back, hiding in the shadows of the bed. Boots appeared, pacing along the floor, traveling to the closet where a suitcase emerged. Armloads of clothing were piled into the case on top of a few pictures. The other man wandered about in the living room sounding agitated.

  “Felton’s gonna be pissed we’re late. You want us to dump this kid off at the Conscription repository?”

  “Naw,” said the man. “I’m almost done. I’ll go with you.”

  “What about Felton?”

  “He can kiss my ass. Give me one minute.”

  “I’m just saying, he likes us to be punctual.”

  The man in the room paused. The suitcase closed as he sighed in irritation, pressing the mattress down above Scribble’s head. “You let me worry about Felton. He’ll just be glad we found another one. Kid should consider himself lucky.”

  Outside in the living room, he heard the voices lower. “It’s okay kid. They’ll take good care of you there.”

  “I don’t wanna die,” Gary sniffled.

  “Die?” The man laughed. “Kid, they are gonna make you live forever, you kidding me? Look, old guys like me… it’s too late for us. Something about our bodies not growing anymore. But you. You have no idea how perfect you are, young and strong… They’ll take good care of you.”

  The heavy boots turned and walked out the door. Scribble then crawled out and followed, shadowing him to the living room. Gary sat on the couch as the other man stood over him wearing a dark coat and hat. His hands looked big, rough, and menacing.

  “Okay kid, let’s go.”

  He grabbed Gary by the arm, but the boy shrieked and pulled away.

  “Come on kid. Don’t make us carry you.”

  Gary went to the ground, crawling away as the men went after him. For a moment, Scribble only stood, paralyzed. His hand brushed against the umbrella case along the wall and he grabbed the nearest handle. A walking stick emerged, knotted and wooden. It felt heavy in his hand and Scribble gripped it with both. He faced the men, raised it into the air, and charged. Scribble brought it down intending it to land on the man’s head, but the man had already turned to see him. He ducked, bring a suitcase up to block, and the cane simply bounced off. The man grabbed the cane, looking at Scribble with amused surprise.

  “Well, waddaya know! Two of ‘em!” he said, standing again. “You’ll fit in just fine with a fight in ya like that.”

  The man took Scribble around the waist and lifted him kicking from the floor as the other man caught Gary by the collar.

  “He knows him!” Gary shouted, pointing at Scribble. “He knows Montegut!”

  The men froze, a glance traveling from one to the other. “Is that true, kid?”

  “It’s true,” Gary continued. “He can’t talk, but he drew all these.”

  Scribble n
odded. There was a moment where he thought they might believed him, give him a chance to prove it. Instead they burst out laughing. The arm around Scribble’s waist grew tighter as they carried him down the stairs. A long dark electric carriage waited in the alley, its windows tinted black. The man holding Gary popped the trunk and then tossed both boys inside. Gary struggled, but the man placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t make this any harder than it is,” said the man.

  Scribble rolled up against Gary. The suitcase went in last before the trunk closed and darkness engulfed them. Gary was crying beside him.

  “What are they gonna do with us, Scrib? What are they gonna do?”

  *

  He and Gary lay jostled in the trunk as the car rolled over cobble for what felt like hours. He listened over Gary’s sobs, trying to distinguish one sound from another. Sounds of merchants and pedestrians soon gave way to the ocean, soon foghorns, then the low calls of ships, metal tools, heavy chains. The car slowed and halted.

  Why are they taking us to the docks?

  “You hear that, Scrib?” Gary whispered. He heard it too. “Maybe they are deporting all of us.”

  The trunk opened, the smell of brine and salt air hitting their faces. Light, yellow as the sun made them wince as hands grabbed them and pulled them from the car trunk.

  They stood at the base of a ramp, staring up at a long winding line of children. Scribble saw no faces he knew, but could tell by their clothing and dirty skin that the kids were all like him—orphans, urchins, waifs, gang boys and girls. They stared around with the same confused expression on their dirty little faces as they inched their way up into a corrugated corridor. Some cried, others simply gawked at the tall, slender, metal guards that watched over them. Deep within the passageway, a red light glowed.

  Scribble looked up at the square windowless building, looming at the edge of the docks.

  A shipyard, he thought. It’s a massive shipyard. Are we building ships? I don’t know the first thing about ships.

  The interior of the factory seemed to be in the midst of renovation. Girders sparkled with torches held by dangling men in coveralls. They ignored the children as they shuffled their way up the metal ramps. Steel beams swung by overhead as workers ushered them into place. But while this section was still a patchwork of metal and cables, the bulk of the factory was square and windowless. There was no way of knowing what was built inside.

  “Here you go boys,” said one of the men who had delivered them. “Sorry for the rough ride, no room in the cab.” He tipped his hat and gestured to the soldierboys nearby. “They’ll show you where to go from here.”

  Scribble could hear the strain in his voice as he looked at the guards. They were strange and alien, covered in spikes. They stood with legs better suited for animals, their eyes hidden behind thick helmets.

  As he and Gary shuffled into line, more vehicles arrived, busses filled with children. Doors opened and the same grimy faces emerged. Scribble had seen them on every street—refugees in their own city. As more children pressed in behind them, the guardrails on either side felt more and more snug.

  The soldierboy guards didn’t speak. They prodded the children to move, or placed a gun in front of them to stop. A few of the more unruly children were fitted with collars attached to long poles. The soldierboys used these to keep them in the line.

  They waited for hours. A child would go in. The rifle would come down, waiting. The guards reminded Scribble of some ancient metal armor he had seen in Lassimir, the head a tipped cone, the eyes nothing more than slits. Their limbs were skinny and long, reinforced with braces and brackets. The torso was also guarded by layers of insectile plating. It was all simply too thin for a man to fit inside, but Scribble had the distinct feeling someone was looking out at him.

  “I’m hungry,” Gary said a few hours later. “Do you think they’ll feed us?”

  Scribble shrugged, staring up at the featureless, looming shipyard. He recognized the symbols just below the metal roof. There were letters he couldn’t read, of course, but in the center was the gear and sword he had seen at the curio store. To his left he could hear the sounds of approaching ships.

  Maybe they are sending us all away, he thought, his mind drifting to images of exotic foreign lands. Could it really be worse than how we have been living?

  “I hear it’s part of the mayoral decree,” said one girl ahead of them. She turned and looked at Scribble and Gary with smeared glasses. “I read the papers you know… they said they wanted to get rid of the crime problem again, that since The Church left the city, they don’t know how to deal with the crime.”

  “Well if they hadn’t taken away the Confessionals,” said another boy with long sandy hair. “That was the only thing that was keeping order. Kept the city from blackouts too.”

  The glasses girl turned on the boy, her face flushed with anger. “I remember what they were doing to people in there,” she snapped. “People went in and never came out again.”

  “They came out,” said another boy. “Sort of.”

  “Well they must’ve done something to deserve it,” said another boy. “Nobody goes to Confessional without a reason.”

  “You’re only ten, Ben. You wouldn’t even remember what it was like.”

  “I remember enough,” said Ben. “I remember that when someone broke the law, they fixed them, instead of fixing the law.” He lifted his chin slightly. “Nobody should be above the law.”

  She laughed and Scribble realized that Ben was joking, parroting speeches he’d heard. Other kids were taking the situation lightly as well, joking, pointing. Nothing bad had actually happened to them in the hours they waited. At the very worst, they were all simply bored. Ben looked as though he was about to say something else, but then a rifle rose and another child entered the corridor.

  “Do you think they’re giving us jobs?” Gary asked.

  With a shrug, the girl pointed to the sign overhead. “That says this is the Conscription depot.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means soldiers.”

  “Yeah, but why?” Gary asked. “We aren’t at war.”

  “We weren’t until that bomb went off,” the girl said. “Now the science advisory is taking anyone they can get their hands on. I hear they’ve started deploying soldierboys along the outer wall.”

  “Well that’s dumb,” said Gary. “Why would they take kids? I don’t even know how to use a gun, or fix a soldierboy.”

  Scribble looked around, his brow beginning to furrow. He caught motion from the corner of his eye and Scribble turned to see a boy running. He leaped over a turnstile, his collar gleaming in the sodium lights. He was one of the unruly boys, the ones held in line with poles, but his had broken except for one short section. It dangled and flopped as he ran. His eyes were wild and scared.

  “I know them!” he yelled. “We all know them—”

  A soldierboy exploded into motion. The speed was terrifying. Arms extended like an angry spider as a net shot from the chest of the guard. It engulfed the escapee who then fell and rolled into a ball. Three long strides and the soldierboy was upon the child, covering his mouth with a gloved hand. The boy’s eyes rolled up into his head and he went limp. A second guard approached and took hold of the net, dragging the child deep into the machinery.

  Both Gary and the girl stood with mouths open. Gary looked at him. “What was that all about Scrib?”

  “Your name’s Scrib?” the girl said, looking at him.

  “His name’s Scribble,” said Gary. “I just call him Scrib.”

  The girl made a face. “That’s a weird name.”

  “Well what’s yours?” Gary asked.

  “Ooloo.”

  Gary guffawed. “That’s an even dumber name than Scribble.”

  “It’s my gramma’s name.”

  Before Gary could counter, a rifle went up. Two more children shuffled inside. The line inched forward. Fifteen minutes later an
d Ooloo went through as well. A chill settled in Scribble’s gut when he realized that he might never see Ooloo or her strange name again.

  “Just us now,” said Gary. He glanced over Scribble’s shoulder. The line was getting shorter, the majority of the children already inside the complex. “Do you think that kid was lying when he said he knew them? I wonder who he knew.”

  The rifle came up again as the sun began to set. Inside, light bounced off sheets of oilcloth that hung in strips from the ceiling. There was no sign of Ooloo anymore, just an empty corridor up ahead, the distant glow of a red light. It grew brighter each time they passed through a curtain. They passed a small trough with discarded items and Scribble recognized the smudged glasses that lay inside.

  Another soldierboy waited beyond the last curtain. It gestured them to continue, watching them through slits. Both boys found themselves on a catwalk suspended over the water. Ten feet above, a conveyor belt ran parallel to them. Little by little they ascended the ramp. With every step the converyor belt seemed to grow lower. More soldierboys leaned over the high wall of the belt, reaching inside with long arms. The metal siding was too high for either Scribble or Gary to see what they were grabbing, but it hit the walls with a wet, heavy sound.

  Up the metal ramp they went, Scribble in the lead. He could hear Gary breathing behind him as they reached the top platform. Scribble froze.

  They were even with the conveyor belt now, but Scribble wasn’t looking down. He was staring at a factory floor that stretched for as far as the smoky air would allow. Figures moved in and out of steam, vented by pipes. Without clothes, the soldierboys were nothing more than metal skeletons, their limbs a framework of multi-jointed legs and arms. Each one ended in a cluster of tools and knives. Some huddled over an assembly line where other figures lied flat on metal tables. The room wasn’t just long. It was tall, floor upon floor above them, a sea of working, scurrying bodies. Scribble smelled burning metal, flesh, and alcohol.