After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “I think you’re wrong, Max,” I said, leaning forward. “There is a bond, because we’re the same. We’re in the same predicament, we’ve been through the same things. We’ve lived through the dark, the coldness, the despair of being left behind. We’ve come through the other side and now we’re ready to move forward. Don’t you understand that?”

  He laughed contemptuously. “One of us understands, and one of us doesn’t, Brant. You think we’re the same, you and me?” His mouth twisted in disdain. “You couldn’t be more wrong. As it is, we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.” He drew his index fingers apart and spread them wide. “Complete opposites. We’ve both been waiting, yes. We’ve both been waiting a long time, and we’ve both been through a lot of shit. But we’ve been waiting for completely different things. You’ve been waiting all this time for a beginning. And now, here it is. You found it. I’m glad. I’m happy for you. You can run off, back to where you belong. You can have your new life, your new start. But me? All I’ve been waiting for all this time is an end. That’s all I’ve wanted. An end.”

  I got up and walked past him, meaning to leave him to stew in his own bitterness, but then turned back. The dented metal of the ruined left side of his face shone dully, appearing strange to me, as I was used to viewing him from the other side, where he still had skin and hair. From this angle he appeared to be nothing but machine. All alloy and wires and artificial components. There was none of his humanity left for me to see, or to which I could appeal.

  I stepped closer. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m going to leave you stuck out there. That I’m going to dump you in a sand dune at the first sign of Marauders. You think that all the things I’ve told you are empty promises, and that there’s nothing out there that I can offer you. But you don’t have to think that.”

  “I don’t care what you think you know about me, Brant.” His fury was beginning to rise again, his hands gripping tighter on the wooden armrests of his chair. “And I know that if it came down to a choice between sticking by me for a hundred years while I was trapped in a sand dune somewhere, or leaving me there and heading home so you can save the world... I know what you’d choose.”

  I just shook my head, impotent.

  “Thought so.”

  Suddenly I was fed up. With Max, with Perish, with everything. I retorted with some venom of my own.

  “Then just stay here and die, Max. Just stay here and die.”

  “Yes, that’s the plan. You understand now.”

  “Well that’s a bullshit plan, Max.”

  He rounded on me. “Do you remember the crevasse, Brant? Do you?”

  “Yeah, sure. That stupid imaginary hypothetical of yours. Another way for you to fear something that’s never actually going to happen.”

  His hands tightened further on the arms of his chair. It creaked mightily, as though it were about to split apart. He was fearsome, more so than I had even seen him before as he drew himself up.

  “Imaginary? I’m already in the crevasse,” he roared. “I’ve been here for decades. This,” he waved his arms about expansively, “this world is my fuckin’ crevasse! I’m stuck here with no chance of ever getting out! I don’t have some bag of meat with my name on it, waiting on the other side of the world to solve all my problems! To give my life meaning. I’m stuck in a place I don’t want to be, and I can’t ever leave it. I can’t leave, or escape for just one minute. Not one second! It’s always here, and it always will be. I can’t even fuckin’ die! This is my crevasse, Brant.” He was shaking. “It’s not hypothetical! It’s real.”

  “Max-”

  “Now get out.” He suddenly levered himself up on the chair and hoisted his prosthetic leg in the air. With thunderous force he brought it down on the windowsill, creating a deep gouge in the woodwork and sending splinters flying everywhere.

  “Max, stop!” I screamed, horrified, rushing forward and gripping his leg with my hands. I stared at him, face to face, saw the rage within his eyes. He struggled against me and I fought back, but it was no use. With a mighty heave he shrugged me away, then brought the prosthetic down again and again, punctuating each strike with the words, “Get... the... fuck... out!” And each blow took another gouge out of the window frame, creating a deafening cacophony. I tried to step in again but I was driven back by his flailing limbs, fearing he’d cut me in half with one of his strokes. After almost a dozen colossal impacts, the prosthetic shattered, breaking apart and clattering on the concrete below.

  “Leave me alone!” he roared. With a jerk, he threw himself out of the chair. It thumped to the floor behind him. He scrambled toward me, and I lurched backward. His eyes were demonic. I grasped at the balcony handrail, slipping and stumbling away.

  He turned abruptly at the stairwell and threw himself into it, bumping and scraping heavily down into the courtyard. Frenetic, he squirmed across the concrete and over into the streets, scraping through the rubble. I heard him slither away for a minute or two more, somewhere out in the blackness, but then there was silence. After that I heard nothing more.

  15

  The sky was grey. A dense fog had moved in overnight, cloaking the city in an oppressive and impenetrable haze. Nearby skyscrapers were swallowed up, disappearing into obscurity just above the rooftops of smaller buildings, as if they’d been lopped off at the stem. In both directions, the street ended abruptly a short distance away in the nebulous white silence. A light, misting rain swirled down from above, tiny particles shifting about on imperceptible air currents. They coated the buildings, the rubble, the courtyard and my skin in a glistening sheen. It didn’t rain much in this city. It almost seemed like a different place in this light.

  It was my last morning in Perish.

  Of Max, there was no sign, or sound. He hadn’t come back after leaving the night before, either gone, or hiding somewhere out there in the fog. I’d briefly scouted around the neighbourhood, but it was useless. If he was nearby, he was being awfully quiet. In reality, he had a whole city to hide within. He could be right next door, or he could be several kilometres away. My chances of finding him out there were next to nothing. I’d followed what I thought were his drag marks for a short distance, but they disappeared into a pile of fallen brickwork. I tossed a few bricks aside, for a moment fearing he’d been caught in a collapse, but he wasn’t underneath. And besides, I’d have heard the bricks come down last night if that had been his fate.

  I wondered: even if I did find him, then what? He obviously didn’t want anything to do with me. Would I drag him out by those stumpy legs, kicking and screaming, and haul him all the way back to the courtyard? Would I berate him for his churlishness and demand an apology? Or just settle on a friendly handshake. Put her there, pal. All’s well that ends well. Sure, sure, it’s been swell. All the best to you.

  More likely he’d knock my head off before I had a chance to even lay a hand on him. One swing from those tree-trunk-like arms and I’d be looking for a new face.

  No, there was no point. There wasn’t a scenario I could come up with that resulted in a good outcome.

  “Max?” I called. My voice fell flat, as if I was shut in a box, as if the fog itself devoured the sound before it could deflect off the buildings and echo back to me. It was a creepy effect that only enhanced the feeling that I was alone and trapped in a strange place.

  I didn’t want it to end like this.

  I lifted my face to the rain. It was cold and delicate as it brushed against me. I stood for a few minutes like that, and the rain pooled ever so slowly around my eyes and mouth. It began to drip off my chin. It almost felt like a cleansing, a purge, to wipe away the dust of the city that had accumulated during my time here. A detoxification. I lifted my hands to it and felt it on my palms, smoothed the moisture between my fingers.

  I wiped my hands on my shirt, then scrubbed at my face. I knew I’d be leaving grimy streak marks down my cheeks, but I didn’t care.

  He wasn’t coming back.
It was time to go.

  I built a little wooden pedestal from scattered pieces of wood and placed the can containing the weed neatly on top. It was a modest composition for a thing of such importance, but it would have to do. I left it in the middle of the courtyard where it would get some sun and some rain, where it could see the sky.

  I couldn’t take it with me. It belonged here in Perish.

  I stepped out into the street, looked both ways. Hefted the satchel, felt the weight of it on my shoulder. It felt good. It felt right.

  “Max, you there?” Nothing. Just the emptiness of Perish pressing in around me. A sound of frustration, of sadness emanated from my throat. “Aaagh. Max. I’ll come back for you.”

  I started walking, compass in hand. West. That was the way.

  In moments the apartment had been swallowed behind me by fog. As I walked, buildings that had become familiar over the last few days came into view, one by one, like old friends lining up to shake my hand as I left on my journey. I acknowledged them all with a glance, a nod. A tiny movement of my mouth. Strange to react in such a way to these long abandoned frameworks, devoid of minds and souls. Things that couldn’t respond in any way other to than stand there silently and watch me go. But in a world such as this, they were the closest thing I had to acquaintances.

  I continued along and the city thinned out. I passed the apartment where I’d first taken shelter, hiding behind the safety of its wrought iron fence. My first stop in Perish. The first time I’d seen it, it had appeared out of the maelstrom of sand and wind like a beacon, a safe haven. Now as I left it in my wake, it disappeared into the serene grey mist, like a lighthouse on the shore disappearing from view as I headed out to sea.

  And then I was back in the outskirts. The bulk of the Perish left behind, I was again amongst those frail old houses, the tentative edges of the city’s reach. There seemed to be less of them now. Perhaps they had succumbed to the sandstorm. I couldn’t help but think of them again as old men, the weakest and most elderly of them slowly dying out, collapsing to the ground and seeping back into the earth below.

  The sharp clack of my boots on asphalt began to dull, as the road gave way to sand and dirt. I was out. The city was behind me and I was on my way.

  Finding my way up onto the ridge was made difficult by the foggy conditions. Rather than sighting my preferred path and making my way as the crow flies, I had to progress like a blind man feeling his way. Out of the mist I abruptly came upon a wall of rock. In the wet conditions, there was no way I was going to attempt to scale it. I turned north and trudged along the base of the outcropping for a number of minutes, in my impatience wondering if it was ever going to end. Quite irrationally, I considered turning around and heading back the other way. I knew that would inevitably lead me to walking and circles, and I resisted the urge. All the while I kept an eye on the compass. North. Now north east. Veering back to the west. It had to end soon.

  And then I had made it. Eventually, I found a gentler gradient of hillside that would result in a much easier climb. I scrambled up the incline, scaling it without too much difficulty. I bounded, hands held low for balance and sometimes scrabbling for purchase, my satchel thrashing about noisily on my back. The mist was clearing the further I ascended. The sun became visible as a bright patch in the sky. The air was warmer. It spurred me on to an even quicker pace.

  At the top, the sun was shining brightly, high in the sky. I looked back into the valley. Perish lay hidden beneath the blanket of fog that extended across the entire valley. It was like a witch’s cauldron down there, seething with a heavy, arcane vapour.

  I reached for my pocket and pulled out the photograph of Zade. I took a moment to let the sun shine upon it. It had been a sunny day in our backyard when I’d taken the photo, much like this one. I remembered every detail, of how he’d run toward me, and how I’d asked him to slow down to pose for the photo. It was a fine art to take a decent photo of a kid like Zade. He was always on the move, always looking this way and that for the next target of his amusement. He didn’t have time to pose for photographs. To capture him like I had that day was a rare moment. A special moment.

  I put the photograph away. Excited by the prospect of the journey, I still couldn’t shake the melancholy of leaving Max back down in the valley. I consoled myself with the fact that I’d done all I could to help him. He’d made his choices, and he would have to live with them. In the end, maybe this was the best for both of us. Beneath the sarcastic facade, beneath the gruff exterior where everything was made out to be a joke, he was terrified. Terrified of leaving, of staying, of living, and even dying. He was afraid of everything and I couldn’t change that, no matter what I said and no matter what I offered.

  In the distance, poking through the fog, skyscrapers jutted out like skeletal fingers grasping for the heavens. In a way, that’s exactly what they were. I saw the distinctive onion-like tip of Ol’ Trembler among them. It, then, was the last piece of Perish that I bid farewell. The last structure to which I gave a silent nod goodbye.

  “Well, you did it,” I whispered. “You outlasted me as well.”

  I flipped the compass open and turned my back on the city. I had a long way to go.

  Ahead of me, my old companion, the wasteland, was waiting.

  Part Two

  Wasteland

  16

  The footprints I’d left out here were gone. They’d been swallowed up some time ago, melting away into the sand as if they’d never existed. Like I’d never existed. That was the way of it out here, the first rule one had to learn: Forget who you are. Here, you are no one.

  That feeling of insignificance was swift to assail me, like a desert vulture of old swooping in to rip open my innards and pick clean my soul. The emptiness was inescapable. It permeated everything. But, strangely, it was also like a comfortable old blanket that the wasteland wrapped around me, cushioning me from all the joy and suffering, the fear and love of the real world. It cancelled out the good with the bad in equal measure, without discrimination. I was nothing again.

  I thought of it as the silent earth, a place where the voices of people, animals, birds and insects had been stilled. Mother Nature’s offspring had all been wiped out.

  But there was a difference this time, something that separated this journey from those that had come before. I was borne along, not by the fear of Marauders, but by a newfound desire. My stride was longer, the pump of my arms more determined. The hunch of my back as I leaned into my march was more purposeful, the rhythmic thud thud thud of my footsteps more rapid. I pushed on because I had a destination to strive toward, and not just a waypoint on an endless flight from danger. There was an end in sight.

  By day I would make my way across the sand. The sight of distant Grid spires, thin towers of rusted metal, impossibly tall and now useless with no one to maintain them, were often the only objects to break the monotony. The Marauders, for now, seemed to have cleared out. Maybe they were pursuing new quarry, or they’d headed north, as the Marauder back in Perish had suggested. I didn’t question my good luck, I just hoped it would continue.

  By night my muscles would ache. Even synthetics had their physical limits. I’d camp out under the cloudless sky, staring up at the stars. As eager as I was to put distance at my back, the thought of stumbling around at night, weary and careless, held my enthusiasm in check. I didn’t have enough supplies to light my way for hours on end. It would be just my luck to fall over a cliff, or into one of Max’s crevasses, and have it all come to a senseless end.

  Instead I preferred to lay with the warm sand beneath me and watch as those tiny pinpricks of light spun slowly across the sky. I’d never learnt all of the constellations before the Winter, but I’d had enough time now to devise some new ones of my own. A dog, a giraffe. An arrow. A bridge. Not anything to rival the majestic patterns of old, but for me, they were enough. I learned to watch for the planets, although I couldn’t be sure which was which without a telescope. Venus and Mars
were easy enough to identify, the former with its evening and morning brilliance, and the latter with its dusky yellow glow. I thought I could see one other planet, but wasn’t sure if it was Jupiter and Saturn.

  Every now and then I’d see a satellite flinging its way across the blackness just after nightfall. That always made me sit up and pay attention. Technology of old, there for all to see, still floating in space, as it had fifty or a hundred years ago. Was it still powered on? Was it still functional? Was someone down here communicating with it, even controlling it? Could they see me right now through telescopic viewfinders?

  Or perhaps it was merely space junk, another useless relic of human technology that no longer served any purpose, and which would soon burn up in the atmosphere, transmuted into tiny particles of dust just as the rest of man’s civilization seemed destined.

  To rebuild civilisation there were so many things we’d have to start again. So many skills and technologies we’d have to rediscover, or reinvent. There were pockets of the Grid’s repositories out there, no doubt, sitting in data stores deep underground or in bunkers. It hadn’t all been lost to the chaos. But there was no way to store everything that had been contained within the Grid - that endless framework of data, the underpinnings of knowledge, of communication, of entertainment, of everything. The Grid had been central to modern life.

  It had been the first thing to reach for in the morning, the starting point of the day. I remembered the routine of gathering up the handheld flip by my bed and then transitioning the information from there to the wall of whichever room I entered, to the glass of the shower screen and the head up display in my car. It gave an overview of sleep patterns, assessing the quality of sleep. It provided suggestions for breakfast as I approached the refrigerator, based on nutritional data gleaned from receptors in door handles throughout the house. It mapped out my day’s activities and appointments and visually prompted when something was added, changed or removed. It presented a real-time aerial map of the city, updating traffic flows and congestion and marking out the fastest possible route to work at any given time.