Wasteland w-1

by Susan Kim

  One cat, Ginger, pawed at Esther’s leg, expecting food. Annoyed, she shooed the animal away.

  “We have to get out of here,” Esther said. “Levi’s men are downstairs.”

  “Oh, I know,” Joseph said. All the time watching the child with fascination, he explained the situation, why the hotel was guarded, how they had discovered his private supply of water.

  Esther blinked. “So that’s what Levi meant? There really is clean water? And it’s here? And you knew all along?”

  Joseph glanced up at Esther, taking note of new details. He was impressed by her new gravity, her mature attitude, not to mention the band around her wrist and the baby. This kept him from responding right away.

  “Are you even listening?” she asked. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  The one answer Joseph could give seemed likely to inspire more criticism. So he just shrugged.

  “You always offered me a cup of it when I visited,” she said. “I guess that was your way of saying.”

  Esther shook her head, marveling at Joseph’s cluelessness, though with obvious affection.

  “Here’s what I think,” he offered. “There’s water deep underground. And it pushed up through layers of rock and sand somehow. I think that’s what cleaned it. That’s all I know.”

  In Esther’s face, he saw a new, more surprising emotion. He’d never seen it in the eyes of another person. It was respect.

  “So what’s all that?” she said, stepping inside.

  She gestured at the calendars that lay scattered around the apartment. Before, at best, she had indulged him about them.

  Joseph was rather proud of the simplicity of one particular creation, a circular wooden board. Now, he explained that so many hours formed a day, then a week, then a month, and so on. But instead of needing to create new lines, his calendar circled back on itself every seven days. Months and years were indicated by advances in either green or blue pegs.

  Esther listened, nodding here and there, asking the occasional question. She didn’t whistle with impatience or smile politely, as she used to do. She pointed to the single red peg set in the center of the board.

  “And what’s that?” she asked.

  “The day I was born.”

  Esther gasped at this, which perplexed Joseph. Everyone in Prin had some idea of when and where they were born, if only in crude approximations counted on fingers or scrawled on walls. It was the relative surety of his calculations, as well as the elegance of his presentation, that impressed Esther, he assumed.

  “I’m—” he started to give my age.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “I’ll figure it out.”

  She used his calendar, competently, her fingers moving, her eyes darting. Joseph watched, feeling a new emotion himself: pride that he could only describe as paternal.

  Esther gasped again, recoiling from the calendar. Then she turned and stared at him.

  “Twenty-six,” she said. “You’re twenty-six years old!”

  Joseph squirmed a bit, embarrassed. To hear it said like that made him feel so old. But then, he supposed he was.

  Levi walked with painful slowness back to his office, followed by Caleb. The two were now the only ones left in the Source.

  The older brother seemed dazed, unsteady on his feet. But that was all the weakness he was willing to reveal. Even beaten and powerless, Levi still held his ground, now worth nothing.

  When Caleb thought about what his brother had done, of all of the pain and misery he had caused, hatred instinctively surged in his breast. He deserved no mercy; why should he, when he had never shown any to anyone else? The world would be a better place if he were to throttle Levi now, to squeeze the slender white throat until he extinguished his life forever.

  And yet, he hesitated.

  Levi had accomplished everything on his own, using only willpower and intelligence. What might he have achieved had he not been so tortured a soul? How would their lives have been different if their parents had kept him instead of casting him out? It was such a waste, thought Caleb, with a sense of profound sadness.

  Despite his anger, Caleb could not deny the blood that still linked them.

  “So,” Levi said, his back still to his brother. “I see you’ve saved me for yourself.” With his hand balanced on the edge of his desk, he seemed calm, as if resigned to his fate.

  “What?”

  Levi turned. “You could have let those animals kill me,” he said. “And yet you didn’t. I don’t blame you… I’d do the same thing. Though of course, I’d enjoy it. I suppose you’re going to have misgivings.”

  From the taunting way he spoke, Caleb realized that even now, Levi was jockeying for position, trying to anger him in order to throw him off balance. Yet Caleb wouldn’t take the bait. Now that he had Esther and Kai, Caleb no longer felt any bloodlust. The urge for revenge had been purged from him. What would one more casualty achieve? All along, Caleb had only been trying to right his world after it had been wrenched askew.

  Rage and revenge would not be his constant, lifelong companions. He would make certain of that.

  “Not everyone’s the same,” he said.

  “That’s what you think,” replied his brother.

  But Caleb refused to be drawn into an argument. “I can’t deny I never want to see you again,” he said. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

  This surprised Levi, who raised one eyebrow. From his expression, however, it was clear he was not so much relieved as amused and more than a little contemptuous.

  “So what do you propose instead?” he mocked. “That I promise to reform? To do good works for the people of Prin?”

  Again, Caleb refused to be drawn into a fight. “I don’t care what you do,” he said, “as long as you leave and don’t come back. Ever. Take whatever you need or can carry. Though I’d advise you not to look back.”

  Levi was toying with one of the silver rings on his fingers. Then he shook his head.

  “Thank you for your generous offer,” he said. “But I’m not going anywhere. You see, there’d be no point. Because I’m as good as dead, anyway. Courtesy of my beloved.”

  Caleb gave him a sharp look and the older boy smiled. “Michal slipped rainwater into my wine,” he continued. “Who would have thought she was capable of thinking that one up, much less carrying it off?”

  “You mean you’re—” Caleb started, but his brother cut him off.

  “Dying,” he said. He was incapable of hiding the self-pity in his voice. “That’s another way you’ve gotten the better deal, you see. Girls fall in love with you. They poison me.”

  Then, suddenly, unbelievably, Levi’s face crumpled. He started to cry.

  He held open his arms and, for a moment, Caleb didn’t understand. Then Levi took him by the shoulders. As Caleb, confused, moved into his brother’s arms, Levi pulled him close.

  To his shock, Caleb realized that Levi, too, yearned for connection, the kind you have with blood, with family. Caleb returned the embrace, astonished by the warmth he felt.

  All at once, there was the rumble of machinery. Caleb tried to turn but Levi’s arms had turned into a vice. By the time he wrenched himself free, the doors had shut, sealing the two inside.

  Levi was behind his desk, pulling something out from beneath it. He now hoisted it up, balancing it on the arm of his chair.

  It was a large metal can of Able Accelerant.

  He shrugged, as if to apologize for the obviousness of his choice. Caleb lunged across the wooden surface in vain. Levi managed to keep the desk between them as he ripped off the plastic cap. Then he began splashing the can’s contents in every direction, across his desk and among his papers, filling the air with its dizzying fumes. Even as his brother was on him, trying to wrestle it away, Levi managed to hold on to it, upending it onto any surface he could find, dousing both of them with fuel.

  Caleb lost his footing on the slippery floor, and his brother fell from his grasp. Levi stood acro
ss from him, panting a little, his eyes glittering. He had fished something from his pocket, which he held aloft. It was a plastic firestarter.

  “It’ll be nice,” he said, “for us to finally be together.”

  Caleb felt a weird stillness overtake him, as if time had slowed to nothingness. He could see his life laid out in hundreds of strands; everything in his past was happening again at once. He saw the face of his mother. The sight of his newborn son, slick with blood and afterbirth. Esther’s eyes. And he saw his brother and himself as if from a great distance and he realized that he was not afraid.

  “The world doesn’t need any more orphans,” he said. “You above all should know that.”

  His brother stared at him, then recoiled, as if punched in the stomach. What did he see? Caleb wondered. Did Levi picture Kai and his own infant self merging, as injustice was handed down to another generation? Did he know that, this time, it would be his fault?

  Caleb would never know.

  Levi reached under his desk. With a grinding sound, the door began to open, then stopped, leaving just enough room for someone to fit underneath.

  “Go,” he said.

  Caleb looked at him one last time, then was gone.

  Alone, Levi stood near his desk, immobile. He considered Caleb’s offer, the prospect of being Shunned himself. But where would he go? The Source was his home, the only true home he had ever had. And he knew the poison was working its way through his body, invisible and unstoppable, like rot taking over a carcass.

  If he closed his eyes, he could practically feel it.

  He gazed at the partly open door, then pressed the unseen button, raising it.

  As if in a trance, Levi walked alone through the massive store. Unseeing, he passed aisle after aisle stacked high with crates made of cardboard and wood, all labeled. poland spring water. golden blossom honey. domino sugar. gold medal flour. Every single one was empty. All they were good for, really, was tinder.

  He reached his destination. It was the room in which the gasoline was kept, the untold gallons and buckets and bottles of fuel that the people Prin had been collecting for years, keeping Levi and his people in light and comfort. He was holding the nearly empty can of fuel. He fingered the firestarter, idly.

  The explosion would be heard for miles.

  Just then, Esther and Joseph felt a tremor. They rushed to the window and saw the rising smoke coming from the Source.

  Shock and anxiety passed over Esther’s face.

  “Caleb,” she said quietly.

  But there was another reason for worry. Joseph’s home, previously weakened by earthquakes and other disasters, now began to shift. Both Esther and Joseph stood stock-still, hoping for it to end. But the rattling did not; it grew greater. The blast had been strong enough to threaten the hotel’s very stability.

  “Joseph,” Esther said, “we have to get out of here. Now.”

  Joseph knew that she was right. Yet it was more difficult than even he expected to round up ten cats. He trusted several of them (Stumpy, Malawi, and a few of the others) to follow on foot. But the others he had to hunt down and stuff into their nylon carrying bags, a process that involved much yowling, wriggling, and scratching. He also grabbed a few belongings: a folder of newspaper clippings, some books, a calendar.

  Meanwhile, Esther kept a grim watch by the door, her face drawn with impatience and concern. When Joseph was ready, she took three of his cat carriers without a word and hoisted them onto her shoulders, where they competed for space with the baby. She handed him her messenger bag. Then they set off, a strange caravan of people and animals.

  They were no more than several steps down when the staircase started to falter.

  At the same moment, plaster and rubble began to rain down on them. They froze for a moment; then quickened their pace. Through choking white dust, Joseph could see cracks widening in the walls. In some places, the stairs themselves looked as if they were about to shear off completely. Entire sections of the staircase started to vanish. The cats could leap over these gaps with ease, but the humans were not so gifted. Esther helped Joseph as they clung to the central railing and worked their way across.

  They were only two flights down when more fissures became apparent.

  This whole time, the child had not cried, even as the staircase shook so much that the very bones in Joseph’s body seemed to rattle. In front of him, he saw that Esther’s dark hair and red sweatshirt were whitened with plaster dust, as were the baby’s head and what had once been dark green cat carriers. When she abruptly turned to face him, Esther’s eyes were like black stones in a field of snow.

  Above, they heard the sound of a massive metal beam breaking loose. It came crashing down a few feet away from where they stood, shearing off another section of the staircase and narrowly missing one of the cats.

  Esther shot Joseph a look that was half plea, half command.

  “I have to go fast now,” she said. “You’re going to have to keep up.”

  Joseph nodded.

  Without being asked, she took his two cat carriers and added them to her overburdened shoulders. Then she seemed to coil up like a spring before she took off. Joseph watched with open-mouthed amazement as she leaped off a shard of ground, made brief contact with the wall, pushed off with her foot and grabbed the handrail, swung sideways and landed on a ledge one flight below.

  There Esther stood, looking up as she waited for him.

  Joseph had to shake himself out of his astonishment. Even his cats seemed surprised by what they had seen. Then he did his best to follow.

  He could not keep up with his friend; it was impossible. Yet they did manage to go much faster. Joseph, however, was not used to such exertion or excitement. His heart pounded and his legs shook. He suggested more than once that she would go faster without him. But Esther stayed with him, always finding a secure spot or foothold where they could both rest.

  They were close to the lobby by the time the ceiling began to break up more. A cascade of white dust crashed down on them from above like a waterfall. Joseph could not see, his eyes and nose and mouth filled with plaster, and he choked and coughed.

  “Come,” Esther called over the roar of collapsing bricks. Joseph felt the pressure of her hand in his. Blindly, he stumbled after her, down a few more steps. He landed on some rubble and stumbled, twisting his ankle and giving out a cry. But Esther refused to let him stop. She pulled him into a clear area, which he only vaguely recognized as his lobby. Still rubbing his eyes, he let her guide him across the ruined space for what he realized would be the last time, until he sensed she was leading him up and across the empty frame of what was once the picture window.

  “Now run,” she said.

  And they did. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Joseph ran as fast as he could across the courtyard, the cats close on his heels. Esther sprinted in front of him, still wearing cats and baby in a way that might have seemed funny if it wasn’t so impressive. They ran past the asphalt court with its lone basketball hoop, past the lot filled with abandoned cars, and still they kept going.

  “Don’t look back,” Esther said.

  So Joseph didn’t. Behind him, he could hear a rumbling that grew to a roar that seemed to suck the sound out of the world.

  Without looking, he knew what had happened. His home had been destroyed.

  Joseph’s heart was still pounding wildly, especially when he realized how closely they had come to being destroyed with it. He thought about all that he had lost: nearly all of his library, calendars, and timepieces. These were precious, beloved items he had spent a lifetime collecting, repairing, constructing. All he had left was what he had with him at the moment.

  But he was brought back to himself by the feel of something at his ankles.

  It was Stumpy, winding herself about his legs and complaining in her tiny voice. Joseph did a quick headcount and marveled. All of his cats were accounted for and, by all appearances, eager for a snack. He shook off his regrets and t
urned to Esther.

  “Oh well,” he said. He tried to sound philosophical. “It was only a matter of time.”

  They turned. Before them was a collection of boys dressed in black hoods, Levi’s boys who had been guarding the building. They, too, had escaped and now stood, staring at the wreckage, too astonished to be dangerous any more.

  “Look!” Esther said.

  All around them, water was seeping up from the ground and forming puddles amidst the rubble of bricks, mortar, and steel. Soon great geysers of water began erupting from the base of the spring, freed from the ground by the disruption.

  Esther stared at the sight for a long moment. Then she glanced up at Joseph, who nodded. She took a deep breath; then in one quick gesture, she knelt and dipped a cupped hand into the spray, brought it to her lips, and drank. Then she sat back on her heels in the mud, blinking, as if stunned by her own audacity.

  Suddenly, she was not alone. The guards were kneeling, as well. They pulled their hoods off and tossed them to the side. Cold water rained down on their upturned faces, their open mouths, drenching them and leaving streaks on their gritty skin and filthy hair. The air rang with their shouts of pleasure.

  Then Joseph turned. Before what used to be the front of his building, a boy was dismounting from a battered bicycle. Esther gave a cry and rose to her feet. She handed the baby to Joseph, much to his dismay. The child kicked his feet with displeasure, as the older boy cooed incompetently at him.

  Esther flew to the stranger and kissed him, which made Joseph blush. Then she pulled him over. He looked like he had been through a hell no one could imagine, and yet he had survived.

  “Joseph,” she said. “This is Caleb. That’s his son, Kai.”

  She told Caleb all that had happened, even while she peppered him with questions. Then she showed him where water bubbled up from the ground.

  “Look,” she said. “This is what Levi was searching for all these years.”

  She had a new thought. Joseph had set her messenger bag on the ground. From it, she snatched Sarah’s book, which she handed to him.