by G J Ogden
“Mum says that all the time,” Elijah chirped in.
“What?” said Ethan, surprised.
“That I look like Granddad,” Elijah said.
“Oh, yes,” Ethan remembered. “It’s not a good thing really, you know – he was a hideously ugly man.”
Elijah chuckled and huddled up closer to Ethan as another flash of light streaked overhead. Both of them watched it in silence. “Where do they come from?” Elijah asked, after the light had burned away into nothing.
“Nobody knows,” said Ethan. “I think that’s part of the fascination with them; that they can’t be explained.”
This puzzled Elijah, and Ethan decided against trying to explain any further. Besides, he didn’t really know exactly what he meant himself, so there was no way he could explain it to anyone else, especially not a wonderstruck ten-year-old.
“I can tell you where the name came from, if you’d like?” Ethan said, trying to answer the question in some small measure at least. Elijah nodded and looked at him, expectantly.
Ethan thought for a moment, trying to remember the story as it had been told to him, years ago. “It’s a word that was used by the Firsts. Do you know anything about them?” he asked.
“A little,” said Elijah. “Weren’t they the ones that started the first settlements? After The Fall, I mean?”
Ethan was slightly surprised that Elijah had heard of The Fall; they were apparently more liberal with the information they gave to youngsters these days. Ethan was several years older than Elijah before he heard the story of The Fall – the name given to the event that destroyed the towns and cities that now lay in ruin, and turned most of the landscape into the barren and near-lifeless wasteland it was today. No-one knew how many died, as there were no records. Whatever civilisation preceded the rag-tag collection of settlements that existed now did not record their history, or anything else, on a physical material. At least not that anyone had found, and truthfully, few had any desire to look. But certainly the sheer size and complexity of the huge cities that now lay wasted across the land suggested that a huge number must have perished. Most of what was known today had been passed down from the survivors of that event – The Firsts. It was a period of great turmoil though, and little of their knowledge was recorded either, simply because of panic or because there was nothing to record it with. As a result, practically nothing was known of the people that came before.
This was not helped by the fact that most of these early survivors died soon after The Fall. That was not in itself surprising, but what was unique about the deaths was the age of those dying. Almost everyone over the age of around seventeen or eighteen died over a period of several years, though some lasted for longer. Some died from injuries or illness, and many from suicide, but the majority succumbed to a previously unknown sickness, which later was to become known as The Maddening.
Ah, ‘The Maddening’. What a quaint name for a thing so insidious and terrible. As if the near total annihilation of the planet wasn't enough, then came along a disease that threatened to kill off those lucky enough – or unlucky, depending on how you viewed it – to survive.
The Maddening only affected adults, mostly leaving those under the age of around eighteen untouched. There was no obvious transmission method or carrier, and this was part of its terror – not knowing how to avoid it. If you were of a certain age, death was a looming certainty.
The first cases of The Maddening began around a year after The Fall, or so the stories told, but it took many more years for people to really understand its nature. This was because, at least at first, those affected seemed largely normal. But then, like the creep of rot through wood, the disease would start to chip away at a person’s soul. The first sign was a steady erosion of basic human empathy, followed by emotions, such as love, compassion, happiness and anger. Those in this stage of The Maddening would simply take what they wanted, and only communicate or co-operate if it was in their interest. They also stopped caring about the pain and suffering of others, and used often brutal violence as a cold, blunt instrument to get what they wanted.
Understandably, such people were soon banished from whatever settlement or travelling group they were part of, and so they set out alone, aimlessly wandering, scavenging for what they could find to survive. And remarkably they could survive on very little, eating and drinking things that would make normal people sick. Although their emotions were gone, their intelligence and ability to function remained, and so sometimes they would cluster together into groups to attack and raid caravans or even settlements, killing indiscriminately. But there was no camaraderie, no celebration of ‘victory’ and certainly no helping their fallen companions. If there was no mutual gain, there was no co-operation. If successful, they would simply fight amongst themselves for the spoils, then they would disband again, heading off alone into the wilderness, or into the cities. Constantly moving. That is how they got their name – ‘Roamers’.
At first, people just thought they had gone mad, that the pressures of living were too much, and that their brains had simply ‘switched off’ or reverted to a more primitive state, so they didn’t have to feel or care anymore. But this wasn’t the case. If it had been, somehow it would have been more bearable; something that people could at least relate to and understand, but this was simply the first stage of The Maddening. It could take years, or sometimes only weeks, but the result was always the same. They would start to physically change; sunken, dark eyes and a face that looked somehow longer, with sucked in cheeks and an elongated jaw. Their hair would thin out and turn a dirty grey to match their mottled, oily grey skin. But it was the eyes that were most horrifying; dark, feral eyes with nothing behind them, as if the person’s soul had been consumed, and all that was left was a dark bile, filling up their insides. Ethan had known someone who had witnessed such a creature chewing the putrid remains of some long dead animal. The creature had glared up at the onlooker with its dead, black eyes and just kept chewing. The man had vomited and then ran, and has never set foot outside the settlement since.
Other stories had told of the maddened creatures sheltering in the same place for days, maybe even weeks, barely moving. And like a spider waiting in its lair, they would spring upon people without warning should they stray, unwittingly, too close. Ethan knew of five Rangers in the last two years who had been killed in this way, straying too far into the cities, looking for tools to bring back to the settlement. It was why the cities were off limits.
Another reason that the cities were off limits was because it had been observed that The Maddening progressed more quickly in or near to the built up areas, or other areas of particularly heavy destruction. This was why the few adolescent clusters of civilisation that had succeeded in becoming established settlements were all high up in the mountains, or in remote areas, distant from, and always more elevated than the ruined metropolises.
Ethan cut off his daydreaming when he noticed Elijah still looking at him, now with a rather more impatient look of expectation. It took him a moment to reset his train of thought to Elijah’s original question.
“That’s right,” he continued, consciously trying to sound more upbeat, “the Firsts were survivors of the civilisation that existed before The Fall, and so pretty much all we know of that period comes from them.” Elijah continued to look at him, wanting more. “Sadly, it's not very much, though,” Ethan continued, seeing that Elijah was not yet satisfied. “Most of them died shortly after The Fall, so all we really have are the stories and memories of the younger survivors, which have been passed on from one generation to the next.”
Ethan decided not to elaborate further. The Maddening was not a subject he wanted to get in to, and so before Elijah could manage to ask the inevitable 'why?' question, Ethan pressed on.
“Incredible to think of it, really,” he lamented. “Imagine being in your teenage years and suddenly your childhood just ends. Just like that. One moment, you're a kid, having fun, and the next you're a
leader, literally with the survival of the species resting on your shoulders. It's astonishing we made it at all.”
“And these survivors, they taught us about the angels?” Elijah asked, focusing back in on the subject he was most interested in, and encouraged by Ethan's apparent candour.
“Yes, or so the story goes,” Ethan continued, hazily, his mind wandering. “The full name is actually 'guardian angel', which is why some call them Guardians instead. You may have heard some people use that name?” Elijah nodded, enthusiastically. “The story goes that each survivor of The Fall had his or her own guardian angel,” Ethan continued, “and that this angel, or guardian, is the reason they survived and didn’t succumb to The Maddening,” Ethan pointed up into the night sky. “The angels watched over them and protected them,” he said, tracing a line from star to star with the tip of his finger. “It’s what made them special, what led them to survive. A reward for their 'faith', apparently, although faith in what, no-one really knows.”
Elijah was completely enthralled, and Ethan began to worry that he might be saying too much.
“Go on...” Elijah prodded. Ethan sighed; there was no point stopping now.
“Anyway,” said Ethan, “these stories got told down the generations, by people like Bald Boucher…” Elijah giggled, and Ethan realised his slip. “Don’t tell your mum you heard that name from me!” he gasped, waving a finger at him. Elijah giggled again and nodded. Ethan smiled and went on, “Anyway, it was the responsibility of these scholar philosophers to tell the stories to a new generation...”
Elijah looked excited, and cut in. “...and so when our ancestors looked up into the sky and saw these flashes of light, they decided to call them angels?” he said. “The same angels that had watched over the Firsts, and now watch over us?”
“Yes,” said Ethan. “You catch on quick. Too quick,” he sighed. Elijah smiled. “It makes us special, Elijah, do you see? Which is why you...” he poked Elijah mischievously on the chest as he said this, “...have been learning about them too. So you can understand how important you are; how important we all are. There are not many of us left.”
Elijah lay back again, looking up at the stars. “I understand, Uncle,” he said, contentedly.
“It’s actually one of the very few things we know about the Firsts,” said Ethan. “It’s one of the few things that still connects us to them.”
Elijah smiled the sort of broad, gleaming smile that Ethan usually only saw on the morning of his birthday, or on a 'biscuit' day, which was when Elijah's mother allowed him first pick of her speciality amber biscuits from the bakery she ran in the settlement. And then, suddenly, the smile fell away and was replaced with a frown. “But why, if the angels watched over the Firsts making sure they survived The Fall, did so many of them then die?” he wondered.
Ethan smiled at him. Razor sharp, this kid, just like his mother, he thought. But still blessed with the naivety and gullibility of childhood. Ethan was corrupted by the harsh reality of fact and reason. At some point this would corrupt Elijah too, but now was not the time, as he had decided earlier. So he resigned himself to telling a lie; a white lie perhaps, but still a lie. He told the story that the bald old goat, Boucher, would later regurgitate as fact. “They stopped believing in them,” he said, trying to sound genuine, “and so the angels stopped protecting them and went away.”
“And that’s when people started to disappear or turn into Roamers?” Elijah asked, looking slightly concerned. Ethan nodded. “But if I believe, they’ll stay and protect me?” Elijah continued.
Ethan was finding it more difficult than he had expected to repeat a lie designed to give hope in the face of hopelessness. He suddenly felt sick, but he forced a smile and nodded.
Elijah's face lit up, joyful. “Wow, so I’ve got my very own guardian watching over me?”
“Yes...” Ethan said, still forcing the smile, still sick to the stomach. They both lay there for a time, just looking up, Elijah looking contented, and Ethan guiltily glum.
“Thanks for telling me, Uncle,” said Elijah, breaking the silence. “And thanks for not telling mum that I sneaked out too!”
“Hey, who said I wasn’t going to tell your mum?” Ethan joked. “Besides, I won’t need to unless you get your backside back inside quickly, before she, or grumpy old Administrator Talia, realise you’ve gone.”
“Aww, do I have to?” Elijah complained. “I really like it up here. It doesn’t smell bad, like it does in the settlement.”
“It smells a lot worse since you arrived,” Ethan joked. “Now get back, before I find a group of Roamers and auction you off as a slave boy. Or worse... dinner.”
“Okay, okay, if I have to!” Elijah laughed. He knew Ethan was joking about the Roamers, but even the mere thought of being captured by a Roamer suddenly made Elijah feel extremely anxious about being outside the settlement walls. “Are you coming too?” he asked, looking around nervously.
“No, not just yet,” said Ethan. “But I’ll watch you from up here to make sure you get inside. So don’t go making any detours.”
“I won’t, I promise,” said Elijah. And then he sat up, leaned over and kissed Ethan on the temple. “Thanks, Uncle,” he said, and with that he scuttled off back down the hill.
Ethan watched as he reached the wall of the settlement and sneaked though the small gap behind the sprawling fruit bush, with its heart-shaped leaves and sweet, fragrant blossoms that had just begun to burst forth in the past few days. He was slightly worried about leaving the gap open, but the bush concealed it well enough, and he was sure it would be fine until he got back and replaced the stones he had removed earlier to get out.
Ethan rested against the tree and gazed out over the land surrounding the settlement. Elijah had been too consumed with looking at the flashes in the sky to notice what the world outside the walls really looked like; barren and desolate for the most part, save for a few pockets of life. Their settlement, high on a hill with a dense woodland, sprawling out behind, was one such pocket. It was called Forest Gate because of its proximity to this woodland area, although calling it a forest was perhaps a little generous. The woodland was the reason for the settlement’s existence in the first place. Not particularly for its wood, although that was used of course, but for its other resources, such as nuts and mushrooms and natural oils, which were harvested by the settlers and traded with other settlements. Forest Gate's nearest neighbour was a farming settlement about two days travel to the east. It was slightly larger, containing 403 settlers, at the last count (counts were done monthly), not including the animals, which were precious beyond belief. Ethan laughed at the thought of taking Elijah to see it someday, or more specifically, to smell it. Perhaps then he wouldn't complain so much about the smell inside Forest Gate, which was positively fragrant in comparison.
The settlements traded with each other, but mostly there was no competition, no commerce in a traditional sense. There were so few left that the discovery of any new pocket of population was treated as an event worthy of great celebration. Everyone shared what they had, for the greater good of all, simply because if they didn’t, they risked dying out completely.
Outside these settlements there was very little alive, besides the Roamers. Roamers that had yet to fully succumb to The Maddening congregated near the ancient derelict cities. There were still some structures intact, many of which were considerably more hospitable than the average settlement hut, but no sane person would dare live there. This was partly because people were afraid of what the cities represented – a relic of a past that clearly didn't end well – but it was primarily because of The Maddening, and the belief that being near them would bring on or accelerate the disease.
It was The Maddening that scared Ethan more than anything. More than loneliness and far more than Roamers. True, it was becoming increasingly rare, certainly among the young, but the prospect still terrified him. This was because, unlike most people, Ethan had seen first-hand someone in the end
-stage of The Maddening. It had been during a simple escort task, taking supplies to a nearby settlement to trade. They had encountered one of the creatures at the mouth of an old tunnel exit, presumably linked to the city. It watched them with hollow black eyes, before eventually skulking away back into the tunnel. It was a lucky escape, but the sight of it still haunted him. Fear of The Maddening kept people inside and away from the cities and it also helped to keep order, not that there was ever much dissent. After all, nobody wanted to risk exile.
Some natural life did exist outside of the farms, of course. There were still birds (though not many), and pockets of wild animals too. Insects, annoyingly, seemed to thrive, but at least this meant that bees were still around to make honey and to pollinate the hardy crops that most settlements cultivated to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their other local resources. Because animals were so rare and so precious for food and materials, the settlement would send out regular three-person scouting parties to search for and capture them for the farms. They could be gone for days, camping out in the wilds. These dangerous sorties were volunteer-only, and Ethan was a regular. He liked the peace and quiet, and the fact he could pick and choose who he spent time with, which usually meant roping in Summer to go along. He even managed to find a few sheep on one outing, an achievement that had gained him significant notoriety. It was why the administrators overlooked his frequent transgressions outside the walls at night; that and the fact he was one of the more skilled fighters.
Ethan obviously understood the need to capture and breed animals, but he also wished they could be left to run free. The few living creatures that remained in the wild were the only things that made the world feel alive. Ethan looked out towards the city – clearly visible, despite the considerable distance, thanks to a clear, cloudless sky – and it was obvious it had not always been this way. The city was huge, sprawling, and despite lying in ruin, there were still signs of its former greatness. Some structures still towered skyward by a hundred metres or more, before ending abruptly in a jagged stump. They looked like trees, snapped in half by a force beyond even nature’s immense power.