The Sleep of the Gods

by James Sperl

  The excavator arm loomed over the pile like a motorized serpent. Its open claw drove downward and snatched a mangled car in its clutches, seeming to spit it off to the side as it released it. It wouldn’t be long before it reached the bottom of the stack.

  New Humans roamed along the uppermost perimeter of the wall. They seemed to sense their expanding range of mobility with each layer of vehicles that were removed. Soon the light from the trucks and excavator would reach well beyond the wall. And when that happened all bets were off.

  Catherine could hear Josh, Shelby, Madeline and Leanne shouting from somewhere inside. She charged back over to the pile just as a Honda crashed scarily close to her. Her son was still inside. And nothing could keep her away.

  “Josh!” Catherine yelled.

  “Over here,” Josh called. Her eyes scanned the darkened wall made all the more dark by the sea of lights emanating from the other side, their illumination backlighting everything.

  The trucks’ reverse warning signals sounded again. Catherine knew with each strike the integrity of the wall was being reduced. It would only take another couple of direct hits before the whole thing crumpled to the ground.

  Running along the face of the wall—was she really trying to get back in?—Catherine searched for Josh’s location.

  “Josh, where are you? I can’t see you.”

  “Right here,” his voice came back. “Directly in front of you.”

  Catherine shielded her eyes then saw him. He was waving frantically from two cars away, his face barely discernable through the oil-slicked windshields that lay between them.

  “Can you get out?” Catherine called.

  “No. The way I thought was an exit turned out to be a dead end. We’re stuck.”

  Scanning the exterior of the cars, Catherine could find no viable pathway. Lunging onto the roof of the car in front of her, Catherine watched warily as the New Humans reacted animatedly to her nearing presence. It made her queasy to be so close to them, but knew there was no other way. What she wouldn’t give to have a gun right now. Climbing over a second vehicle and riling them even more, Catherine fell to her stomach and peered between the cracks of two vehicles butted up against one another.

  Josh was directly below her.

  “Can you see anyway out above you? Over your head somewhere?” she asked.

  “No. There’s nothing. Even the way we came in is gone.”

  “Keep looking, Josh. There’s got to be a way.”

  “I have been looking!” he railed. “You think I want to stay here?”

  “All right, sweetie. We’ll figure something—”

  The signals stopped beeping. Catherine’s head snapped up and she looked over her immediate surroundings. Cars teetered precariously from various locations near her and as she heard the RPMs from the mining trucks kick into high gear, realized she was in the worst position possible.

  She scrambled to her feet, simultaneously yelling to Josh and the others, “I’ll be back!” Turning back toward the street, she began to run across the roof of the car.

  Then the impact came.

  It was more forceful than she anticipated. The sudden shift in solid footing wobbled her and drove her painfully to her knees. She rolled onto her back in time to see a pickup truck slip from its position above and rocket toward her. Spryly, she twisted and rolled away as the truck smashed mere feet away into the area where she previously lay. The collision jolted her into the air, the momentum from the truck toppling it as it continued toward the ground.

  “Mom!” Josh screamed.

  “I’m okay,” she replied, not sounding entirely convinced.

  Righting herself, Catherine was forced to find a handhold as the previously horizontal vehicle on which she stood now rested at a considerable angle.

  “Where are you?” Josh’s voice came again. But this time it sounded clearer, more direct. Catherine crawled over the car in a frenzy looking for the explanation when she discovered a narrow gap between the hood of the vehicle she was standing on and the inverted trunk of another car. It wasn’t large, but she thought with a little effort a person could get through it. Clamoring over to it, she forced her head through the opening and looked down.

  Josh and the others stared back at her from directly below.

  “Mom!” Josh cheered.

  The ominous dual beeping tones began again.

  Catherine forced her arms through the gap and held them out. “Come on. I think this hole is big enough to fit through. Hurry, they’re going to ram again.”

  The group scurried like rats in a cage, searching for any possible way to reach Catherine. A footstep. A handhold. Anything. But there was nothing available in spite of the wreckage around them. She was too high.

  Josh exhaled with frustration. “Goddammit, I just want out of this place!”

  “We’ll find a way,” came Shelby’s reassuring and compassionate voice in the dark. “Mrs. Hayesly, there’s no way up. We can’t get to you.”

  “Nothing? There’s nothing you could stand on, a...a rope from a trunk you could toss up? Nothing?”

  “No, mom. There’s nothing, okay?” The irritation in Josh’s voice was palpable. Any further pressing on Catherine’s part would only serve as a detriment to the situation.

  Catherine extracted herself and whipped her head in the direction of the New Humans. They’d moved even closer now, their soulless faces gazing at her with an anticipation that made her quiver. In a couple more strikes they would be on them.

  Then something struck her, sobering her instantly. A thought danced through her head. An image that played in her subconscious, of something seen yet not realized. Was it actually there? Did she, in fact, see what she thought she saw?

  Those damned reverse signals stopped again and three seconds from now the landscape of the vehicles upon which Catherine stood would be altered irrevocably. She had a decision to make. One that would be based on blind faith and not much else. If she were right, then there existed a chance. But if she were wrong...

  Trust yourself, she thought.

  The engines from the trucks revved and gears grinded as Catherine turned back to the hole. Rotating herself one hundred eighty degrees, she slipped her feet then legs into the opening.

  Josh and the others watched incredulously from below. “What the hell are you doing?” Josh screamed. But Catherine didn’t have time for explanations.

  Forcing her torso into the opening, she worked her shoulders, one by one, through the slim notch then followed with her head. Hanging by the tips of her fingers, Catherine prepared to drop. Josh and the others readied themselves to catch her, their faces screwed in a look of sheer incomprehension.

  For the second before the mining trucks hit, a lifetime of indecision coursed through Catherine’s brain. All the second-guessing of a myriad of situations gave her pause and prevented her from releasing that final grip into the unknown. But there were no other choices, and at some point in her life she would have to start believing in herself. Believe that she was capable.

  The trucks slammed with full force into the car wall. And as Catherine fell to earth, she watched as the vehicle to which she had just clung sheared away from her line of sight. A waning gibbous moon appeared in its place nestled in the black velvet of night. And Catherine thought it had never looked more beautiful.

  25

  Going Down

  Her foot ached and her head throbbed. She could hear voices calling her name but they sounded far away, under water. Forcing open her eyes, Catherine found herself staring Madeline in the face.

  “What happened?” Catherine said shakily.

  “You took a knock on the head,” Madeline said.

  “You okay?” Shelby asked.

  Josh stepped behind his mother and snaked an arm around her waist. “What happened is that you’re totally insane. What the hell were you thinking?”

  The two pulled Catherine to her feet, the rotation of the world catching up with her. Then sud
denly she remembered. Remembered why she had chosen to abandon the relative safety of the surface for the uncertainty of the alcove below.

  Getting her second wind, Catherine stepped away from the group and searched the ground, rotating wildly as she did so. Josh was already on his way to a Ford Taurus, which had fallen at a forty-five degree angle into the space and served as a would be ramp to the now cleared opening above.

  “I’ll climb out and pull you all up,” he declared, one foot already on the hood of the car. He turned and saw Catherine, her face turned to the street beneath her feet. “What are you looking for? This way. Up here.”

  Catherine regarded him only briefly then spun suddenly, her eyes filled with terror. “Josh, no!”

  Josh took two more steps, arriving at the rear window of the car and nearly to the top before he fully comprehended Catherine’s disapproval. Had it not been for Leanne’s quick and powerful jerk of his legs out from under him, the arm of the New Human that swiped at his head would have most certainly connected.

  Rolling from the vehicle and slamming to the ground, Josh stared up at a group of New Humans as they circled the opening like a pack of wolves.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  The New Humans reached and swung their arms at the trapped group, their blank expressions unsettling. They maintained position along the circumference of the opening, moving and jostling for a better angle in the off chance somebody else took the risk of climbing out.

  Madeline and Shelby shrieked in pure terror. Catherine grabbed each by a shoulder and forced them to look at her.

  “They can’t get us. Not as long as there’s no light.” Madeline and Shelby quieted, their tear-filled eyes locked with Catherine. “At least not yet.”

  The beeping hadn’t sounded yet and Catherine could only assume this meant the New Humans had taken a break in their assault to conduct a recon mission. See if they’d been able to smoke anyone out. It might be just the pause she needed. But it wouldn’t last long.

  “What the hell’re we gonna do now?” Josh said, his voice quivering. “We’re fucked!”

  Catherine released her grip on Madeline and Shelby and pushed them back, searching the cramped quarters of the street on which they stood. She knew it was there. It wasn’t an illusion.

  Trust yourself, she prompted again.

  And then she saw it. Just inches shy of being covered by a demolished red Chevy, it rested in the shadows virtually hidden from sight. But it was there. And Catherine wanted to cry.

  A manhole cover.

  She shoved passed everyone and fell to her knees, her fingers eagerly working at the holes in the cover in an attempt to heft it free.

  His eyes darting among the New Humans, Josh watched his mother with absolute incomprehension. “Mom, what the hell—”

  Then he saw it, too.

  No words were necessary. No apologies required. No pleas for forgiveness requested. There was only a mother and her son working feverishly side-by-side trying to free the lid from its resting spot.

  “Can you get your finger into the hole?” Catherine asked.

  “I think so,” Josh said.

  Madeline, Shelby and Leanne crowded around, the sequence of Catherine’s actions up to this moment now brought into full clarity.

  “Okay, on three,” Catherine said, her fingers tucked into a pair of openings on the cover. Josh adjusted his stance, his fingers also worked into the narrow holes. Catherine looked at him. “One, two, three!”

  The pair yanked upward, their muscles straining, their knuckles popping, but the cover wouldn’t budge.

  “Let’s try again,” Catherine said, shaking the indentation of the cover from fingers. She reached for it again when Josh stopped her.

  “We’re never gonna be able to lift it. We need something to help us.”

  “What?”

  Josh searched around him frantically, his mind buzzing with a thousand ideas but no options to implement any of them.

  “Please hurry, you two,” Madeline said, her voice quavering nervously.

  Above them in the opening, the New Humans continued to circle with more joining the group. They leered into the cleared area, some testing the limits of their environment by venturing further into the pit with their reach only to be met with a crackling sound as their flesh—now devoid of nourishing light—began to wither.

  Josh looked from the New Humans to the car he had been standing on a minute previous when a thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.

  Sucking in a powerful breath, he charged. The New Humans swirled with anticipation as Josh flew for the angled vehicle and ripped open the back door with surprisingly little effort. Their arms reached in toward him, a beehive of activity.

  “Josh!” Catherine shrieked when she caught sight of her son’s actions.

  But Josh didn’t hear her. Didn’t have time to acknowledge her discontent with words of assurance. He knew as well as everyone else that they wouldn’t last much longer in their pit of despair. And the only way, it seemed, to escape it was not by going up and over, but heading down and out.

  Crawling on the back seat, Josh could see the New Humans through the windshield reacting with what could only be labeled as frustration at their inability to get to him. Their faces began to register expressions—and none were of the friendly variety.

  The car was a sedan of some sort, large and boxy with ample room. He’d had little experience with cars that size, but the limited amount of knowledge he did have told him that most of them shared similar design features. And if that were true, then the item he sought would be in the trunk.

  But the trunk was inaccessible in the car’s current position. He’d have to find another way. In some models, he knew, there was one, but whether or not this particular model offered such an alternative remained to be seen. Approaching with crossed fingers, Josh grasped the center back seat cushion between his filthy hands and exhaled. With a quick tug he pulled it forward. The cushion rotated downward onto the seat. Behind it lay a large, gaping hole into the trunk.

  With a grin of mild success, Josh started into the cavity when the entire car shook. He extricated himself in a split second and was met by a chorus of screams.

  Retracting like a giant claw from an enormous reptile, the excavator had claimed another vehicle—this one from directly over Josh. Barely recognizable as a car, the large grappler twisted and released the mashed vehicle with an ear-shattering crash somewhere off to the side. Then it came back for another.

  Josh’s eyes bulged wide. He knew it was now or never. Jamming himself back into the hole he felt blindly along the contours of the trunk, his fingers searching until they locked on the suspected area. Working a panel free he had a brief moment of accomplishment as his hand wrapped around the object of his intent. Ripping it free, he forced himself back out of the hole and from the car.

  It took a moment for Catherine to register what it was Josh held as he crawled from the vehicle, but when she saw it she knew that he had probably just saved all of their lives.

  A tire iron.

  The excavator slammed down on another vehicle directly overhead. Metal tore into metal as the claw closed around the car and snatched it upward. Catherine and the others ducked for cover as glass rained down from shattered windows.

  Shaking pellets of glass from his shirt, Josh dropped to his knees over the manhole and worked the tapered end of the tire iron into one of the holes.

  “Here it comes again!” Shelby blared.

  All heads turned to the sky as the open claw clamped down on another car. Once this one was carried off, the New Humans would be within ten feet of them. Light was beginning to flood the pit and with each successive removal, the survivors’ area of safety became drastically reduced.

  Josh lay on the bar with all of his weight. He pushed downward, thrusting repeatedly with his arms. He thought for sure the bar would break under the strain of all the force exerted upon it, but it remained rigid. With his muscles taut and q
uivering, Josh gave the bar a final surge.

  Then the manhole broke its seal.

  “I got it!” he yelled, euphoria swelling in him.

  Catherine and the others dropped to the ground, working their fingers under the exposed rim of the lid. Josh abandoned the bar and grasped the cover with both hands, virtually tearing it from the ground. Adrenaline coursed through him and he thought that, at the moment, he could probably lift a car if it came to it.

  “Everybody in. Now!” Catherine ordered. Wasting no time in directing everyone to safety, she grabbed Shelby and Leanne each by an arm and urged them toward the hole. Shelby began to lower herself when a spine-straightening crash sounded from just behind the group.

  The claw grasped another vehicle. As it retracted with not one but two cars ensnared in it, a shaft of light suddenly broke through and shone down into the pit—all the way to the street.

  Catherine, Josh and Madeline stood in knee-locked terror as a pair of New Humans—a portly man who looked as if he could have been a trucker and a woman wearing a Century 21 uniform—lowered themselves into the hole and stood on the street along with them. The light blanketed only a portion of the hole, the New Humans utilizing every square inch of it as they stepped to the precipice of darkness.

  Then one of them spoke.

  “You shouldn’t try and fight,” the woman said.

  Catherine and Josh stood up rail straight at this, mouth agape and fear pulsing in their ears as Madeline descended into the tunnel.

  “Get in,” Catherine said to Josh, her eyes never leaving the woman.

  “No, you go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Catherine jerked her head around to meet him. “I’m not playing around, Josh. Get in.”

  The excavator claw swung back around. With the next extracted vehicle Josh knew the New Humans would have unfettered access to the entire cramped area. Light would flood the pit followed soon thereafter by as many New Humans as it would allow. There would be no place to hide.