Earthweeds

by Rod Little

  “Days become short forays,

  and the rain falls in the red.

  These times look bleak and frayed,

  Taken lands all dry and dead.

  Away to walk and disappear,

  Stroll with the living dead,

  Anger full, and empty heart

  Every single tear you shed.

  Never turn nor look away,

  Never shut your mind too tight,

  Keep open your eyes wide,

  In the end we'll make it right.

  Time twists in tidal shifts,

  Rips the world in three or two,

  May we face it ever strong,

  Maybe start anew.”

  Shane enjoyed listening. It was simple and sweet – one of the few Honeybee songs he didn't dislike. The song was about sadness after a break-up, but it fit well as a requiem to the loss of Earth.

  “Almost makes me like her,” he whispered to Camila.

  Sam enjoyed it, too, but he didn't stay for the whole song. Instead he climbed the watchtower to relieve Tina. She looked pretty with her hair cut shorter. He wondered at what point that had happened. Her blouse fit snug as always.

  “Hair cut?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “During surgery it was getting in the way. Afterwards I had Lucy cut it for me. Did you know she used to cut hair before she became famous? Anyway, short hair is easier this way, considering... you know.”

  “I guess so.” He ran a hand through his own hair and pushed it out of his eyes.

  “She seemed happier cutting my hair. I bet she was a good person in her old life, before the rock star experience. I bet she was happy before she became rich and famous.”

  “Isn't everyone?” He smiled and shrugged. “Well, I like it. Looks good.”

  “Thanks. It's my 'end of the world' look.”

  “Very pretty. Now you should go downstairs and get something to eat. It's still warm.”

  “Thanks, I will. How's the black eye?”

  “I'll survive.” He subconsciously touched it with his fingers, not realizing how often he kept doing that. “I've had worse.”

  As she left, she kissed his cheek. It was quick and simple, and he tried not to read too much into it. He assumed it was a sisterly peck on the cheek, nothing to worry about. Yet in his mind, he fantasized that it might be more – even if only for a second. He wasn't looking for a girlfriend, and certainly not with the ex-girlfriend of a dead friend. Ken hadn't been a friend per se, but he had been a member of their group. Still, Sam harbored a million feelings that kept him awake some nights. After all, he was still human – an eighteen year old human male.

  Still human. Thank God for that... he thought.

  Bohai awoke to a faint thumping sound. He had been dreaming that crows were pecking on the window of his room back home. When he opened his eyes and lifted his head, he briefly thought he was there, back in his room at his parents' house in Toronto. Then he shook the sleep aside and remembered he was in a hotel room at the end of the world.

  The thumping sounded again – ever so light – and he half-expected to see the crows from his dream at the large window of his hotel suite. But there were no crows outside his room now. Instead, a swarm of fireflies danced in the darkness just inches from the pane of glass. Like matches struck one after another, they lit a small corner the night with their glowing bottom parts.

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” he chanted quietly to himself. That was the rhyme his friends back home used to say whenever they saw fireflies at night.

  He glanced at his watch: 5:15 a.m., then stepped to the wide window and lifted it open. The exertion on his arms caused the bandages to flex, and a burning ache shot up his side. He pushed a hand against his stomach and waited for the pain to ease. Although feeling much better, his chest and arm muscles complained with every movement. The headache was a bonus.

  On the window's edge the fireflies careened in a circle over and around each other, their bottoms lighting on and off; but they were not frolicking. This was no waltz of joy. It was a dance of agitation. They wanted his attention and they wanted something more. He could hear their voice – and it was one voice, not several – speaking a single word: “Come.”

  After dressing quickly in the dark, he carried his shoes and stepped softly on socked feet, down the stairs and out the front door without making a sound. He slid his shoes on and crossed the garden, then slipped out the side door. At the front gate, he paused and waved at the watchtower. It wouldn't be good to get shot by his own side mistaking him for an intruder. Someone waved back, but in the darkness he couldn't be sure who.

  Come.

  Bohai followed the fireflies into the dense forest. He knew where they were leading him, and he knew what they wanted.

  Chapter 26

  When dawn filtered into day, the war began.

  That morning Sam woke to the sound of rocks hitting each other. He jumped out of bed and opened the closest window. Stu was gathering the stone pieces of the gate and stacking them into neat piles. Except for the rocks chinking together and the birds chirping, the morning was quiet. The air felt crisp, like any fall morning, and it smelled good, really good. If asked, he would have said that autumn was the only season you could really smell.

  Sam went downstairs to the kitchen where Camila was cooking powdered eggs and instant coffee. It was 7:20, assuming the clock on the table still worked with any accuracy. He sat down, and Camila gave him a plate.

  “Everyone else is still sleeping,” Camila told him in a low voice scarcely above a whisper. “They were up pretty late. You feel okay?”

  He touched his face again without realizing he was doing so. “I'm good. These eggs are great. Who would have thought? Powdered!”

  “It's probably just because you haven't had real eggs in weeks.” She laughed.

  He ate quickly, and reached for his phone to check emails. It was a habit that would not die soon. His phone no longer roosted in his pocket; it lay somewhere in his room with a dead battery. No emails, no news updates, no more Line messages. He missed all of them. Nothing to do about that now. He filled his coffee mug and went outside to check on Stu.

  “The plan,” Stu told him, “is to rebuild the gate with the pieces we still have. We'll seal it up with the cement we have on hand. But it will have to become a wall. Can't make it to open and close anymore. We'll have to seal it up as one big barrier. Try to make it strong.”

  “So how will we go in and out?”

  Stu took him to the hedges on the side of the courtyard. He pulled the thick brush aside to reveal a door. about six feet high, slightly smaller than a standard room door.

  “I assume this was for the hotel staff,” Stu said

  “Sure, we can come in and out this way. But no cars. No vehicles. They'll have to be parked outside?”

  “Yep, that exposes your van,” Stu grumbled, toothpick in the corner of his mouth. He was trying to smoke less. “Someone could steal it or blow it up. But we got no choice.”

  “I understand. And we still have the guard in the tower. Anyone tries to steal it, we can see them, maybe even stop them. As for someone blowing it up... can't help that, I guess.”

  Stu agreed. “More important to have the front sealed off, if you get my point. And we need to check the rest of the wall. See if it's secure all around, even in back. Make sure there are no cracks. This is a big resort, so we should double check every nook and cranny.”

  “I'll look around now,” Sam offered.

  Sam took his coffee and wandered back through the resort grounds. He checked the wall for more doorways or for any cracks in the concrete, and pulled back the hedges for a better look at key points. The wall seemed solid, and no more doors popped up. He followed it all the way to the back, and then checked the other side.

  At the rear of the lodge he noticed another watchtower, partly hidden by trees and vines. He had to pull hard to force its door open, stuck from months or years of disuse. Shorter than the front two
towers, it stood about two and a half stories high, and its steps were cracked and dirty. He took them cautiously one at a time and rose up into the watch platform. A large blue jay had made its nest there. It sat calmly on its eggs and didn't stir when Sam appeared. Tough bird, he thought. Perhaps it was Bohai's presence at the lodge that put the birds at ease. Anything was possible.

  A built-in telescope protruded on a stand at one end of the platform. This had once been a good place for tourists to do bird watching, but now suffered from years of corrosion. He cleaned the eyepiece with his shirt and peered through the scope. The rusty telescope swivel squeaked as he moved it. He looked down at the stream below and saw Zeus and a few other big cats drinking at the stream and catching fish for breakfast.

  “Big Bro was right,” Sam said aloud to himself. “Lots of trout in there.”

  He finished his coffee while enjoying the haunting, and yet peaceful, environs that only the back tower could provide. As the lodge sat on a hill, an embankment sloped down twenty feet to the stream. From here, he could see the top of the canopy of trees.

  Sam thought about trying his spark – practicing the way Bohai had urged. He fought the temptation, at first. Too many years of denial were hard-wired into his system. Nothing about his special ability made him feel right. But after a bit of reflection, he gave in to it. He did not like to disappoint friends or family – and that was his greatest foible. He was too easily persuaded by loved ones. Sam too often did the wrong thing for the right reason. Now he prayed the use of his spark was not such a case.

  First he looked in all directions to make sure no one else was around, then he opened the palms of his hands. He created a stream of electricity and balanced the ceramic coffee mug on it. Next, he built a sphere around the mug and moved it out onto the open air, out over the gully. He drifted it at least thirty feet from the ground and kept it hovering there, like a feather on air. It required almost no effort on his part.

  He concentrated harder, and succeeded in spinning it. It whirled in mid-air, faster and faster. His control of his art was more impressive now than it had ever been. Losing restraint these past few weeks had done something to release it. Like releasing a demon, he wondered, or like unleashing power during a sprint? Either way, something had changed inside him. Every time he used his odd power, he felt corrupt, like a cheat. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

  Now he raised the sphere higher, increased its size. It became a three foot diameter plasma ball and floated high over the stream. The cats decided to move on downstream away from it. He changed the spin direction, trying to control every axis, every point of its movement.

  Suddenly the mug exploded and the sphere collapsed. The atmosphere crackled and sparked, as pieces of the ceramic mug fell into the water. They were so hot, they caused steam to hiss up into the air above the stream for a few seconds. And just as fast, the atmosphere stopped crackling, and the phenomenon was gone.

  Like releasing a demon.

  He took a deep breath. These sessions always winded him. It was as if he had run two miles, or swam five laps in a pool. His body was drained, but would regain energy quickly. He needed to sit down for a moment. The bird squawked but didn't fly off.

  “Sorry about that,” he apologized.

  After a short rest, he left the tower and continued his inspection of the wall. Examining every stone, he made his way back toward the front. The wall appeared to be solid and without any new hidden doorways, cracks or weak points.

  “No place for the demon to escape,” he chuckled to himself. Not even he knew what he meant by that.

  In the front yard, Jason and Stu had begun reassembling the gate. They had already added water to the concrete, and now Jason stirred it while Stu positioned the first stones. Sam helped spread the concrete and hold it in place. They didn't have the proper tools, but a spade found in the gardening shed seemed to work fine. Within an hour the wall was three feet high. It hardened fast in the morning sun.

  “Let's go to four feet, and then let it set,” Stu instructed. “We'll see how that goes, then shore it up with extra concrete tomorrow.”

  “But eventually we need to go all the way to the top, right?” Sam asked. He looked up at the twelve-foot high wall.

  Stu shook his head. “We don't have enough cement. We can go about five feet I think, but that's all. At least it should slow down anyone who thinks of climbing over. And hopefully we can pick them off one by one from the tower. We'll go to four today, then add a foot on top tomorrow. We can lay some spikes in the concrete, sticking up. That should stop just about anyone from climbing over.”

  “Spikes? From where?”

  “In the shed,” Shane said. “We found a couple gardening tools with spikes.”

  “We can also break some glass bottles,” Stu suggested. “Put the shards in the concrete sticking up. Anyone who thinks about scaling our wall will have to earn it.”

  “Yikes,” Sam muttered.

  “We need to protect this fort. Those men aren't playing games, and I don't think the lizards are either.”

  Camila came out and brought them some tea and packaged cookies. “Everyone's awake, and Jason's in the tower. His arm is healing. But Bohai is missing. He isn't in his bed.”

  “I didn't see him this morning,” Stu said, “And I got up before the sun.”

  “He needs to rest, and heal. He shouldn't be outside.”

  “We'll go look for him later,” Sam promised. “We need to finish this wall first so it can dry.”

  They set about bringing the wall to four feet, then took a break. Shane found some bottles to be broken and set in the top layer. They would add the shards and spikes tomorrow along with the last layer. Stu explained to them that an upright wall needs to harden in sections.

  “I'll defer to your wisdom,” said Sam, “since I know absolutely nothing about concrete.”

  The birds became flustered just then. Their warbling got noticeably louder and their movements more erratic. A flock separated from the trees and flew to the hotel roof. Snowball raced into the garden and stared intently at the sky, one paw raised as if preparing to run.

  Something came out of the dark woods and approached the road: a hooded shadow. The figure stepped over the wire fence and tin cans, then approached the gate. It was Bohai wearing a hooded sweatshirt. With walking stick in hand and bandages peeking out of his sleeve, he peered over their new wall from the other side. He pulled his hood down.

  “Good job, guys. But how do I get in?”

  Sam motioned for him to go around to the side. When he opened the door, it occurred to him that there was no lock for it. They'd have to fix that later, and maybe even make some kind of barricade.

  Bohai had been out hiking since early that morning, well before dawn. He didn't say much about where he had been, just that he had more news from the outside world. Even though his tone was light, a dark crease lived on his brow, and his eyes betrayed a deep worry. A great many things troubled him this morning, and he revealed only one of them.

  “The armies are gathering,” he told them. “Pittsburgh is overrun with lizards. They've started moving across the land. They're going from town to town, purging the countryside.”

  “Purging?”

  “Weeding out the rest of the people. Killing and eating them – and anything else that's in their way.”

  “Damn.” Sam handed him a bottle of water.

  “The spiders are forming ranks and getting ready, but they're badly outnumbered. We should get ready here, because we'll have to fight soon.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “I think they'll reach us by tomorrow night or next day.” Bohai gulped down the water. Eyes ringed with dark circles, he looked exhausted.

  “Come inside and get something to eat,” Camila said. “Get some rest. You're still banged up pretty bad.”

  Stu lit a cigarette. “New plan, gentlemen. Let this concrete set for a couple hours, then we get back to it. We finish it today.�
�

  “What about spying on Dexter?” Sam asked.

  “Doesn't sound smart today. Let's stay close to home.”

  “We can fly your drone,” Shane said, “But let's not go far. We'll go out a few miles. Stu, can you stay here and keep an eye on the wall?”

  “Yep.”

  “Jason's in the tower, the others are inside recovering. It's you and me, Sammy.”

  Sam fetched the drone and gear and put it in the van. They left shortly before noon, and drove to a hill about five miles away. The drone wouldn't reach Dexter's compound from there, but it might be able to get a distant aerial view.

  Sam positioned the drone on top of the van while Shane stood guard. He paced around the van with his crossbow ready in both hands. The lack of any movement made him nervous. There were no sounds, not even crickets out here. Their arachnid bodyguard hadn't come today, either. The spiders had disappeared altogether.

  The drone had four sets of propellers installed on four wings, and a hi-resolution camera underneath. It whirred to life, and lifted precariously into the air. As it rose higher, it steadied; Sam was getting the hang of it.

  The drone took off and flew over the trees, the valley, and quickly disappeared from sight. It was preset to come back to its GPS base if it ever got to the edge of its range. Right now it was three miles out. It could go a bit further, five miles max.

  The brothers huddled around the phone and fixed their eyes on the screen. Thus far only trees and dirt appeared on camera. It was hard to discern any life through the small lens. Sam slowed the drone, so they could see more details. At five miles, they found Dexter's compound, but it was a distant image. The red light on the screen indicated the drone was at the end of its reach where its safety mechanism prevented it from going further. It hovered in that single spot, broadcasting its captured view.

  They didn't see much around the compound. A tiny guard was barely visible on the wall. Something shifted in the trees outside Dexter's camp, but there was no way to tell what his men were up to.