I took one last look at the boy who meant everything to me. The boy who had never existed at all.
A gust of wind made the photograph flutter in my hand. My grip tightened, became like a vice, an unbreakable hold. Instinct kicking in again. The need to protect, to keep safe. The one thing I couldn’t lose, the one possession out of the thousands I’d collected over the years that had ever meant a damn to me.
I parted my fingers and sent it swirling away into the night.
I walked for a long time. My only objective was to move away from the skyscrapers of the city, those ghostly silhouettes that towered against the glow of the fires. As long as they were at my back, I didn’t care where I was headed. Once again I followed the road and let it take me on my way.
Eventually, the solid crunch of my footsteps on asphalt became the dull thud of boots meeting sand. It was a sensation I had experienced many times before, and it meant only one thing: I was headed back out there. Out into the wasteland - the only place where I could absorb the nothingness and avoid the terrible revelations that I didn’t want to face. That place where I could once again be no one, divorced from the pain and the bitterness of the real world. A spectre who could no longer be touched by the events around him.
So this was where I belonged, after all. This was not a limbo, a place to which I’d been banished for all those years. This was the only place in which I could bear to exist. It was my home. My true home.
It seemed to welcome me with open arms, a mother solemnly accepting the return of a long lost son.
If I wandered out here in this silent earth for long enough, could I forget what she’d told me? Could I forget who I was?
Part Four
Pathways
39
In the darkness I couldn’t see what was in front of me. The way was shrouded, uncertain. Everything was an obstacle. Everything was trying to get in my way. Sharp things ripped and scratched at clothing and skin alike. I scraped, I bumped. I tripped and I fell. I got back up. I kept going.
I wasn’t stopping at night anymore. There was no need to exercise caution now. What would it matter if I fell into the hands of Marauders or plunged to the bottom of a river, if I ended up crushed under a landslide of boulders or the massive bulk of a rotting tree? What more damage could the world do to me? What more could it take from me? It had already done its worst, and yet I was still here. I was still walking.
I barely differentiated day and night anymore. They were different phases of existence where heat and light fluctuated, but nothing more. I didn’t raise my face to the sun or the stars, or watch the passage of the moon across the heavens. I didn’t look to the horizon to see the deep grey of incoming storms so that I could find shelter, and nor did I cease my pacing when they hit. I walked through sun, through the biting cold of night, through rain and through whirling sands without discrimination. As long as I could keep placing one foot in front of the other, that was all that mattered.
The familiar weight of my satchel was gone. I’d left it back there, in that hateful place I couldn’t bear to mention. It was either consumed by fire, resting amid debris or just slowly sinking in the dirt. I didn’t know where, and I didn’t care, since none of its contents were of use to me now, anyway. Those trinkets and gadgets and so-called treasures couldn’t regulate or assist the steady rise and fall of my boots through sand, the only thing that now mattered to me. The satchel and everything inside was gone. Good. I wouldn’t miss it. It was just a crutch, another illusion that my life had meaning, another layer of blindfold that had constricted my face for all these years, hiding the truth. I didn’t need things out here. The very notion of it seemed absurd to me now. Binoculars and compasses were superfluous for those who wished not to see, for those who had no direction in which to go.
Now I had nothing but the clothes on my back, and beneath that, the tattered remains of my broken spirit beneath. Both were wearing thin, becoming more incorporeal every day, and yet somehow they felt far heavier than the satchel had ever been.
I didn’t see any Marauders, or hear the roar of their engines. Maybe they’d been chased too far north to bother me anymore. I was disappointed. I wanted them to find me, to allow me to vent my frustrations on them, to put as many of their number into the dirt as I could before they ripped me apart, bringing an end to my torment. But they wouldn’t come.
Time passed but I was outside of it. I was in my own little place where it couldn’t touch. And so it was difficult for me to judge just how long I’d been walking before I came across the city.
For the first time in so long I lifted my head, felt the spasm of muscles in my neck as they worked and stretched in this unfamiliar way. I felt as though the vertebrae in my spine were constricted, fused in place, counteracting my efforts. I grunted and pushed, straining against the inertia. The blue of the sky rolled into view, harsh and bright. It was like an intruder in my little world and I scorned it with every fibre of my being.
My eyes adjusted, and for the first time I saw what lay before me. Ahead, the terrain sloped gently downward toward the decaying spires of the city, and I stood and stared, taking it all in. The thought came to me that it might have been a picturesque valley back in the day, but now....
I smiled grimly.
“Perish,” I croaked, my voice cracking. It was little more than a rasp, the sound one might expect to hear from a forgotten wretch who hadn’t uttered a word in a thousand years. I moved my tongue around in my jaw to loosen it up, pressed it against the roof of my mouth. It felt as though it were coated in sand. I scraped at it with my fingers as I gazed down the incline.
How fitting to end up here, I thought dismally. To be drawn to the place where all things came to die. The place I thought I’d left behind all those months ago. Maybe I’d find my end here, too. Or maybe that was a fate too kind.
I started down the slope, taking in the familiar sight of slanted and crumbling skyscrapers. I was entering of my own volition this time, not herded and hurried along at the whim of a sandstorm. On this occasion I took my time, and as I went, I tried to assess the peaks and troughs of the skyline to determine if more buildings had fallen in my absence. Ol’ Trembler was still there, reaching up higher than all else, skewed on that odd little angle, defying gravity and the pull of the elements. I recognised the shape of others, too, blasted and withered but holding their own.
I thought of Max. What would he say, to see me limping back into Perish? Would he laugh at me, call me a fool? Would he gloat, say I told you so, and Where are you dreams now? Would he welcome me with open arms, now that I was truly his kindred spirit, someone who, like him, was lost with no help of salvation? Or would he just yell at me and push me away as he had done previously, preferring to exist in his own bubble of misery without the intervention of any other?
I would find out one way or another soon enough.
I passed between the sad little houses on the outskirts. The last time I’d seen them when leaving the city, I’d looked upon them in an almost cordial way, as if they were friends I was leaving behind on good terms. Now those cracks and jagged gaps that twisted their exteriors seemed more like laughing, grisly maws of cruel brutes who found delight and amusement in my predicament. They had no effect on me. I was already at the end. I was at rock bottom, and I could sink no lower. Their imaginary barbs were lost on me, they were ineffectual. I kept going.
The inner city loomed before me and I kept up my pace. Buildings that I had searched, and others I had earmarked for later explorations came and went, now of no greater interest to me than the rubble on the street over which I trod.
It was mid-afternoon when I came to the courtyard at Max’s apartment. He was not lying out in the street as I’d expected. I stepped through the detritus and made my way over to the rounded indentation he’d created, his perch, and stood looking down at it. I thought of the first time I’d seen him here, thinking he was dead, another part of the rubble, and how he’d hauled himself out here ea
ch day to lie and stare up into the sky for reasons known only to himself.
But he wasn’t out here today.
Might be inside, I thought.
Taking a few paces across to the courtyard, I saw that the weed I had left to grow in the rusted tin can was still sitting securely on the pedestal, but not quite as it had been before. It was flourishing, its leaves now overflowing and hanging outside the confines of the can. Its progeny was everywhere, sprouting between cracks and joins in the courtyard tiles in at least a dozen locations. The courtyard was now beginning to resemble a garden more than the patchwork of broken tiles I remembered.
Worryingly, there were no signs of Max’s passage here. Had he been making his daily pilgrimage to the street, he would surely have dragged himself through here, crushing and bending these little weeds underneath his frame in the process. Instead they stood tall and proud and whole.
The wheelbarrow was here, and the copper coins that Max had tossed out of his window were unmoved. I bent and picked one up, turning it over in my fingertips and thumbing the worn markings, dirt smudging my fingers. Carefully I placed it back down in the same spot.
“Max?” I called out. The sound rang out across the empty city, but as I’d expected, there was no response.
Carefully stepping across the tiles to avoid the plants, I reached the stairwell and began to trudge upward. The first time I’d taken these steps to see Max seemed like a lifetime ago. There was no sound coming from the apartment, not the creak of Max’s chair or the scuff of his movement on the carpet. With a sense of dread, I came to the second floor and out onto the landing, turning to face the apartment.
Inside, the room was just as I’d left it. Nothing had been moved or dislodged. Those chunks Max had torn out of the windowsill in his fit of rage were unmended, and splinters and shards of wood still littered the floor, the aftermath of his destructive fury. Even his wooden chair seemed in precisely the same location. I could make only one assumption.
He hadn’t been back.
So where had he gone?
I performed a quick search of the apartment building, moving from room to room and floor to floor on the off chance that he had either relocated, or that he had heard me coming and had quickly slithered deeper inside the complex in order to avoid me. There was not a lot to find in there. Most of the apartments resembled Max’s in many ways, the resting places of old bits of furniture, mouldy carpet and dust. I could see no sign of his passage here either, no scrapes or scratches on walls or floors to show he had come this way. It was a dead end.
Back out in the street, I traced my fingers through the place where he’d once lain, like a wilderness tracker searching for signs of his prey. There was nothing to find, not even a scrap of fabric. He could well have lain there this very morning, or, alternatively, not once since I’d last seen him. There was no way to know which, based on the evidence before me.
I started along the road and considered the possibilities of where he might have gone. Here and there I ducked in and out of ruined shops and apartments to search for signs of his passage, but found nothing. I called out his name more than once, but felt foolish in doing it. It was becoming increasingly likely that he had either left the city entirely, or was hiding out there and didn’t wish to be found.
I briefly considered the notion of why I needed to find him so badly. Was I still trying to repay my debt? Or was I just wallowing in guilt from leaving him here? Maybe that was it. This wasn’t about him, but about me. It was my attempt to put this one thing right, to return to this poor lost soul who I’d abandoned the first chance I had.
You’re being stupid. That’s not how it was.
Maybe that was my first coherent thought in weeks. I was right. It hadn’t been like that at all. I was building this up into something it wasn’t. I’d tried to help Max in so many ways, but he’d pushed me away at every attempt. There was nothing else I could have done, short of slinging him over my shoulder and hauling him away, kicking and screaming across the desert.
I reached the river and looked to the north. There were more plants here now - not as many as back west, but there was a marked change nonetheless. Different varieties were shooting up all over the place, straining toward the warmth of the late afternoon sun. One day in the distant future, even Perish would be green again.
To the south, the formidable bulk of Ol’ Trembler dominated the skyline. It looked serene, tranquil. The rusted metal of the honeycomb exterior glinted in the sunlight. My eyes followed the curves of it right up to the peak far above, where it seemed so high that it might be lost in the clouds at any moment. As breathtaking as it was, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of repulsion at it. The higher my gaze ascended, the more uneasy I became.
No. He wouldn’t have gone there.
The voice in my head was hollow and without conviction. In moments it was superseded by another.
Of course he could have.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Ol’ Trembler was the most likely place he would have gone. Wasn’t that what he’d said all those times? That he’d climb to the top and wait for it to fall? I’d always viewed those comments as idle musings, but now it didn’t seem so far-fetched.
But he couldn’t have made it up there. Not all the way up.
Maybe he did. Or maybe he only made it part the way up and decided that was far enough. He might have been sitting there on the third, or the tenth, or the thirtieth floor right now, watching me like an ant crawling around in the street and silently laughing to himself at how foolish I looked.
I turned my back on Ol’ Trembler and began walking back to the apartment. I decided I would wait there tonight to see what happened. Maybe Max would show up after all. Maybe I was getting all concerned over nothing.
“You’re stalling,” I muttered to myself, disgusted. It was the truth. Max was not coming home tonight. He would not be making a miraculous return, climbing up the stairs and appearing in the doorway with a big smile on his face. Had ya worried, eh?
No. I would be spending the night alone, and I knew it.
Over my shoulder, Ol’ Trembler lingered ominously, biding its time and waiting for the inevitable.
40
In the light of morning I followed the edge of the river, heading south. The surface was calm and benign, contrasting the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if, finally, I’d reached my last day in this forsaken world. For one who had always avoided risks, I was about to do something that I would once have considered insane.
I had to climb Ol’ Trembler. I had to know if Max was in there. As I approached it, I couldn’t conceive of a reason for it to still be standing. It almost looked as though it were in the process of falling right now, arcing toward the ground but somehow frozen in mid-flight. I pictured myself climbing its stairs, circling around and reaching the lower side, my tiny body providing just enough ballast to finally tip it over the edge and send it plummeting to the ground.
Walking within its walls was akin to a game of Russian roulette with the odds not in my favour. I knew that. But what did I have to lose by going up there in any case? I’d already arrived at a point where I’d decided there was no value in my life anymore, so why not? With the stakes so low, there really wasn’t a reason not to go.
Veering away from the river, I crossed up and climbed over some old garden beds that contained a scattering of weeds, some rusted floodlights and what looked like the stumps of palm trees as their only occupants. The gardens curved away extensively in both directions, forming an elaborate pattern that must have been an amazing sight from the heights above in the heyday of the city. Dropping down on the other side, I navigated through the teardrop shaped circuit that led to the entrance, past the cars that had been left here and toward the dark cavity of the foyer.
Here, the scale of the place was truly staggering. I hadn’t realised before just how broad the base of the building was. Maybe that was one of the reasons why it hadn’t fal
len yet - the foundations must have been tremendously deep and extensive. Vertically, it just seemed endless. It curved away into the sky to a point where I could no longer see the peak.
As I neared the slanted entrance there was a great, sustained creak that made me shudder to a stop. Oooaaaaaaahhhhhh. The grating of huge strands of steel as they shifted under the colossal weight of the building. It sounded like the deep and ancient voice of the building itself, warning me one last time to stay clear of it.
Unfazed, I kept going. The front doors had cracked and splintered away, so there was nothing to bar my entrance into the ground floor. Inside, the foyer was broad and expansive with a high ceiling and ornate marble columns that were now chipped and fractured. Busted sculptures, furniture, and pieces of concrete and plaster that had fallen from the ceiling were the most recognisable features still remaining, and broken glass was everywhere. Beneath it I could see a large circular pattern etched on the tiles, now obscured by the garbage that lay on top of it.
A flight of stairs was visible to the left, leading up onto a mezzanine, but one of those marble columns had fallen upon it and it looked impassable. I picked my way gingerly across to the elevator doors and found the entrance to the stairwell nearby. It was ajar.
Gripping with both hands I pulled it aside, and it squealed and whined as it slid across grit and chunks of plaster into a more accommodating position. I squeezed through and went inside, standing there listening for any sounds that might be coming from above. Greeted by nothing but silence, I placed my foot on the first step.
Still time to back out.
I pushed myself onward. Even from the first floor it was not an easy climb. A hole had been punched in the concrete exterior, sending a shaft of light across a mound of rubble, and I clambered over it, dislodging a few pieces and sending them bouncing and thumping down the stairs below. Looking back over it, I had to wonder: Could Max have made it over that? I had my doubts, given that he couldn’t reach very high, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t turning back now. I strode up to the second level, free of the first obstacle, and then beyond.
After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1) Page 26