Moriah

  As Bruce had fallen, as he’d plummeted to the ground—the image almost sickened Dee—had his last thoughts swirled about the monstrosity that had pitched him towards his end? Or had Bruce thought of his family twenty-five years ago, before the world changed? Were his thoughts with Tris? Dee wondered if Bruce’s concern would have been with them—with himself, with Riley and Kevin—knowing the mutant was upon them. Bruce and Kevin went way back. Bruce and Dee too, but Dee had been a boy when he’d met Bruce, whereas Bruce and Kevin had been men when Bear brought them together in his army.

  Yes, Dee berated himself, Bruce would have been thinking about them. And all he’d been able to think about was Riley and his own bullshit romantic stirrings.

  Chase had said—

  Dee corrected himself. The munt had said Bruce screamed all the way down, and Dee believed it. He couldn’t imagine that Bruce’s yell was one of terror. He conceived of Bruce’s final cry as a shout of defiance, the battle cry of a warrior who expected to get up and continue the fight. So while Dee believed the mutant when it said Bruce had been screaming, he refused to accept its connotation. He believed what it said about Bruce because he believed what it said about Moriarity. If Chase had killed the hermit—

  If it had killed the hermit, it would have tried to rub it in, like it had with Bruce.

  All these dark thoughts weighed heavily on Bear’s son. He knew it wasn’t good. He had to get his mind elsewhere. He turned and looked out across the water, turning his back on a dock he could no longer see, on Bruce and Tris, on Fred and Victor and all the others. On Chase. Chase. The thing—so inhuman—with a human name. Just a name, a regular name you’d give to anybody. Yet Dee couldn’t think of it as human, and not because of its appearance. He’d encountered deformed men and women before; Tris had been quite a sight for almost all of the time he’d known her.

  He couldn’t conceive of the mutant as human because humans didn’t do what Chase and his family had done, what Riley had told them she had seen in the barn. Actually, Dee corrected himself, he knew all too well what human beings could do. He remembered his father. He’d seen his father make how many kills? Too many to count, too many to remember. Zed and human beings. Dee believed his father had only killed the people that deserved to die, those that had it coming to them. People who had threatened Dee or their own group, those who attacked them first, the ones who refused to come back into the fold of civilization, content in their savagery. A savagery which spelt misfortune for others, a misfortune Dee’s father would never allow.

  And yet, Chase—the mutant—had spared the hermit.

  Would an animal have done that?

  When he was a little boy, they’d come to a town. Their army was much smaller then and what there was of it needed to recover after New York City. Bear had thought it prudent to put up for a fortnight in an abandoned house where the injured could begin the process of healing.

  His father had come one morning, waking him, walking Dee through the house, around inert forms cast in sleep. He’d taken Dee to what had been a kitchen, the floor covered with loose tiles. Pointing out the window above the sink, Bear indicated a tree immediately outside, its branches pressed against the kitchen. A bird sat in a nest. Dee couldn’t remember what kind of bird it was, what coloring or markings it bore. All he could recall clearly was thinking then that it was small, so small. She’s going to have her babies in that nest, his father told him. Dee couldn’t imagine it. If the bird was so small herself, how was she going to have babies?

  He watched the nest carefully and closely that first day, there being little else to do inside the house. Fighting sounded throughout the day outdoors and the bird did not leave its nest once.

  Each morning, Dee looked out the window, checking on her. And then one morning she was gone. She was gone, but three little orbs swayed within the nest. Their necks impossibly thin, eyes slitted, yellowed triangular beaks opening and closing silently. He’d stood at the window, fascinated, until their mother flew back to the nest, the little blind orbs bobbing up and down as she fed them.

  What can I do for them, dad, he’d asked his father. Nothin’, his father had told him. Dee wanted to touch them, to hold them in his hand. You do that, your scent will be all over them, their mother will abandon them. Abandon them. As Dee himself had been abandoned. Knowing what it was like to be forsaken in a blighted land, Dee would never wish such on another living creature. He refrained from touching them, opting to observe from the kitchen.

  They grew quickly in the two weeks he watched, their eyes opening, down appearing. Their little voices protested in shared hunger whenever their mother disappeared. They fascinated Dee. He noted the way their mother doted on them, sitting with them, keeping them warm. As her babies grew, she spent less time in the nest and more on its lip, until Dee worried she would be pushed off or one of the babies itself pushed out.

  There came a morning when Dee stole to the window to find the nest bare. He went outside, to the back of the house. The gun his father had given him was in his hand, because theirs was not a safe world. He rounded the house to the tree beside the kitchen window, searching the ground.

  They’re gone. His father spoke from behind him. He’d followed Dee outside. Yes. The nest is empty. His father squatted down and studied under the tree with his one good eye. They flew off, with their mother. Dee remembered how sad he’d felt. He wasn’t going to see the birds again. There were tears in his eyes.

  The boy Dee had seen untold zombies and innumerable humans die. His eyes welled up over the departure of the fledglings, over the course of nature. Dee had seen enough in his short life up till then to know that not everyone who left had the chance to say goodbye. Why? He looked up into his father’s face, at the teardrop tattoo. Because they were ready, Bear wrapped one mighty arm around his bony shoulders and held him for a long time.

  Dee remembered being that boy, sitting there outside that house on his father’s leg, wondering what the little birds had felt when it was their turn to fly. Had they been scared? Had they leapt eagerly from the nest, or did their mother have to prod them?

  An image of Bruce—hurtling screaming through the void—occurred to him.

  A seagull screeched as it passed by the stern of their boat and he jerked his head from his reverie. The bird dropped down towards the water, its wings held steady, floating on a current. Had the others seen it? The others in Bear’s Army, on their way to Africa? The bird flapped its wings and rose gracefully.

  “Dee. You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine, Riley.”

  “Then can I ask you,” her voice turned stern, “what you were thinking?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the dock. Turning around and going after him like that?”

  “I was thinking of how scared I was.” That was the truth. The bird flew away from them, getting smaller. “I was thinking of Bruce.” That was also true. He looked at her. “I was thinking of how bad I wanted to mess that thing up.”

  “Was that some kind of he’s-a-man, he-can-bleed crap?”

  “It wasn’t a man,” Dee shook his head disdainfully, “but, yeah, it could bleed.”

  “He was a man, Dee. Human.”

  “No. Not him.”

  “I saw it back there,” Kevin said from under the awning. “I think ‘humanoid’ is the word. It didn’t look as bad as the other ones. That one with the foot growing out of its head? I can’t get that out of my head.”

  “I just got tired of running, Riley.”

  “Now you sound like Moriarity.”

  “Why should I run? My dad never ran. Tris never ran.”

  “What did you think was going to happen?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. Either it was going to kill me, or I was going to kill it.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kevin concluded, “we Kentucky-fried its ass.”

  “When you guys left…It was talking to me. It sounded…like us. Like a person.”

  Riley asked him what it
had said.

  “It said it didn’t hurt the hermit.”

  “Probably lying,” asserted Kevin.

  Dee looked down at the back of his hand. “I don’t think it was lying about that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was honest about other things.”

  “You’re either very brave,” Riley looked at him sitting there in his underwear, “or very stupid.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  She grinned at that.

  Dog Island

  They reached the barrier islands. Many had long washed away, erosion and a lack of upkeep leaving entire islets disconnected one from the next. Hurricanes had come through and halved still more, rending tears and washing out fresh channels. Others were reduced to dunes and piles of driftwood sprouting from the blue. Tides from what had been known as the Atlantic Ocean rushed out, sucking the waters of the sound to sea.

  Among the smaller islands they spotted one larger landmass, carpeted in green. Kevin brought the motorboat in closer. Ringed by beach and plant life, the vegetation grew dense towards the middle of the island, which was wooded and hilly. If there was anything there it was masked from their eyes at this distance, from this vantage point.

  “Think this is our island?” asked Riley.

  Kevin squinted towards the shore. “Could be.”

  “Let’s see what this brings.” Dee fired a round from Kevin’s AK-47 into the air, the crack reverberating across the sea to the shore. He fired another shot for good measure.

  Riley was laughing quietly.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “You should see yourself.”

  Dee sat there in his damp underwear, his injured leg and foot stretched out ahead of him, the AK pointed skyward in one hand, his back against the side of the boat. His revolver was snug against his midsection in its bellyband. He put his free arm on the gunwale and looked down on his legs. The flesh was goose-bumped from the damp and chill.

  “I look ludicrous, don’t I?”

  “You look ridiculous.”

  “I’m cold.”

  * * *

  Some time later the sun was directly overhead. There was a nippy bite to the air out on the water. The heavy nylon of a sea anchor kept them in place as they waited to see if their earlier gunfire would draw any zombies to the shore. Kevin had an arm over his eyes, flat on his back on the deck, assault rifle across his stomach. One of the two thin blankets Riley had found was draped over her shoulders, her clothes still wet from their earlier plunge. Dee wore the other blanket over his lap.

  Much time had passed silently between them like this until Dee saw the look on Riley’s face. “You’re thinking about Anthony again?”

  “No.” She could have let it go at that and he would have let her, but she felt the need to answer this man. It wasn’t because she had to or felt she owed it to him. Riley wanted to talk to Dee, his leg extended out over the side of the boat, his foot re-bandaged. “I was thinking about Lim.”

  “Who’s Lim?”

  “He was my Sabum-nim. My taekwondo teacher.”

  “Yeah, I see how you move. How you hold yourself. Like when I first met you at the bomb. You got into this stance, holding your arms…” Dee tried to physically replicate what he remembered from his seated position but couldn’t. Both he and Riley laughed at his effort. “You looked like you were going to mess me up.”

  “I work in a dojang back home.”

  “What’s a dojang?”

  “A gym. I teach taekwondo.”

  “You teach?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re a master?”

  “Not quite.” Riley thought about her own training, about her sixth dan. “Not technically. In taekwondo, there’s belts, right? When you get your fourth degree black belt, you’re sabum-nim—you can teach.”

  “Sabum-nim isn’t master?”

  “Not in the sense that you’re thinking. You’ve mastered the art well enough to teach it to others, but true mastery—Sahyun—is rewarded with the seventh and eighth black belts.”

  “So you’re…sabum-nim. What are you, like fourth or fifth degree?”

  “Fifth. Working towards my sixth.”

  “Man, seventh or eighth sound like they can take forever.”

  “They can. And they should.”

  “Lot of hard work and suffering for anything desirable, huh? That it?”

  “Well, look at you guys,” Riley answered him. “Out here fighting zombies for decades. But taekwondo isn’t about suffering. It’s about discipline.”

  “Lim was your sabum-nim?”

  “Yes, until I was fourteen.”

  “What happened at fourteen?”

  “He died.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “He had cancer.” The boat rose and lowered on the swells. “He taught right up to the end. I went and saw him before he died. He was so weak. He smiled this little smile for me and lifted his fingers from the bed. He was waving at me. I didn’t let him see me cry.”

  “Sounds like you were a tough girl. And Lim was a tough man. Mentally, I mean.”

  “He was. I always thought—that’s how I’d want to die. Like he did. I mean—when the time comes, and you know there’s no way out of it—quietly. Bravely. He didn’t whine. He didn’t say, why me?”

  “You think that’s what you’re doing, is that it? Whining about Anthony? About your friends?”

  “In my head I am. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. I just have this feeling that things are going to get so much worse before they get better. If they get better.”

  “It’s going to get better.” He tried to reassure her. “The last few days? They were about as bad as it can get for someone. For you, for me. But, personally Riley—and I only met you not too long ago, right?—I don’t know how you’re holding up as strong as you are.”

  “Thanks, Dee.”

  “And it is going to get better.”

  “When?”

  “From this moment on.”

  “You promise?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I do.”

  She favored him with a winsome grin and he paused to savor it. When she looked away he asked her, “What happened after Lim died?”

  “My dad found me another sabum-nim. I trained with him.” She moved her hand around in the air before her, balled fist opening to a knife hand. “Took over his dojang when he thought I was ready, when he felt he couldn’t continue.”

  “He couldn’t continue?”

  “Cancer.” She pushed back at the atmosphere with her palm. “Again.”

  “Yeah, there is a lot of that.” Dee looked into the blue sky. “Damn this world of ours.”

  “He’s not dead. Not yet. He’s still alive and doing okay. I saw him a few weeks ago, actually.”

  “Well, that’s good then.”

  “You know,” she lowered her hand, “I’ve never talked to anyone about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought it would be interesting to anyone.”

  “I think it’s interesting, Riley. I think you’re interesting.”

  She blushed and looked away.

  “Sorry, Riley.”

  “No, it’s—”

  “No, you know what it is? I get you, Riley.”

  “You get me, huh.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Yeah.” She thought about it. “Maybe you do.”

  “We’ve still got a few hours left of daylight.” Kevin had risen from his nap, joining them. “You guys want to take a chance, go check it out?”

  They scanned the shore with Dee’s minocular. No zombies were in sight.

  “I don’t think we should get off the boat.” Riley sounded hesitant.

  “And I agree with you.” Kevin nodded. “But we don’t have enough fuel to get anywhere else.”

  “You guys took the time to douse the pier with fuel, but you didn’t bring any extra for the boat?”
/>   “Those drums were heavy, Dee.”

  “So,” Riley hadn’t taken her eyes from the island, “we either go and explore it, or…?”

  “Or we sit here and wait,” Kevin laid out the other option, “for whatever, whenever.”

  “Let’s take our chances on land,” suggested Dee. “Riley.” She looked over at him. “What’d I tell you?” The towel covered his bare legs. “From this point on—it gets better.” His bandaged foot. “I promise.”

  Riley couldn’t help it.

  She started to laugh again.

  * * *

  As they approached the shore, Kevin trimmed up the motor, pointed the bow towards the beach and let the engine idle. The boat glided forward until they all felt the first touch of sand under the hull, at which point Kevin gave the boat a little fuel, effectively beaching it without damage. Riley leapt from the deck to the shore. Her AR-15 was in hand but no suitable targets presented themselves.

  “Do we need to tie it up or anything?” Dee asked as Kevin and Riley helped him over the side of the boat.

  “We can anchor it later on.” Kevin didn’t add that, depending on what they found here on the island, they might be in a rush to get back out onto the open water. “Tie that blanket around yourself, Dee.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.” Dee looked down at his underwear, at his naked legs.

  “We are.”

  “Oh, that was a good one, Riley.”

  “Glad you think so, Dee.”

  A dog’s bark brought them up short halfway between the surf and the tree line. She came out of the trees raising a racket, a medium-sized, mixed-breed collie-whippet.

  “Riley, wait,” Kevin said. She had raised the AR to her shoulder.