“C’mon, Henry. Don’t pretend like you forgot. We practically lived here growing up. How much time did we spend here―sneaking out of our homes? How many suppers did we miss hanging out later than we was supposed to? I even recall saving your life here once, if you remember.” She chuckled as the memory of it played out in her mind. “What were you thinking kicking that hornets’ nest anyway?”
Coal scanned the park, then Ruth. Beneath her scarf she was smiling. Her eyes gave it away. But the memories weren’t vivid to him as they were for her. They seemed somehow distant, as if they weren’t even his, like dreams only vaguely recalled. He couldn’t say why.
“I thought it’d be good to see it again,” said Ruth. “You know―remember the old times.”
Coal tilted his head and looked into his lap, the glare of the snow too much for his eyes. “A lot’s changed since then, huh?”
“Maybe too much.” Ruth folded her arms. Her body and tone became stiff and down-to-business. “You know these Purgings of yours they ain’t clean. There’s collateral. Always is.”
“Clean?” Coal snorted. “Nothing’s clean anymore. Innocents die―they always do. It’s the city’s oldest story. The difference is we decide who dies and when, not the disease.”
“You really hate the Plague, don’t you, Henry? I mean really hate it.”
“I would carve this city from the earth and burn the disease-ridden world beneath me if I could.”
The words fell from Coal’s mouth with every intimation of a thought well traversed through his mind, yet the voice sounded foreign to Ruth. This wasn’t the same Coal she’d grown up with, nor even a shade of the man she procured the office of mayor for.
“Listen to you, Henry. That ain’t you. Burning the world―” Ruth flicked up her hand and scoffed at the notion. “The Henry I know was gonna save the world, not pull himself off it. Purgings don’t work. Maybe exiles do no good either, but they’re sure a hell of a lot better if you ask me. There’s enough death going round this city without us adding to it.”
“And the mayor?” said Coal. “What about him? And those in line ahead of me to take his place―those deaths were tolerable?”
Ruth’s eyes conveyed the scowl beneath her scarf. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Henry. You know I don’t got a problem doing the dirty work when it needs doing. Never have. I did you that favor to give you a chance to change things.”
“I am changing things,” said Coal.
“I meant for the better.”
“So did I. The Purgings do work,” said Coal emphatically. “You should know better than anyone the way things really are.”
“I only know what you tell me.”
“The shit’s spreading, Ruth. Don’t you see it? You don’t win a war after a few battles. Give it time. You’ll see I’m right.”
“No,” said Ruth, “time’s up. The only reason I ever bought into these Purgings of yours is cause it was you who was asking. Now I ain’t sure who you are anymore, and Mama Ruth don’t take orders from strangers.” Ruth laid her hand on top of his. She sighed. “You’re kicking the hornets’ nest all over again, Henry. All I’m trying to do is save you.”
“This city needs to be saved, not me,” said Coal. “And if I’ve changed it’s only for my eyes having finally been opened. I see the world for what it really is now. Do you?”
Ruth shook her head, eyes fixed straight ahead into the park, searching for another memory of the old times. An easier time. “Plaguers always get quiet in the cold. You ever noticed?” Ruth could tell Coal had already stopped paying attention, was planning his next move, but it did not dissuade her from thinking aloud anyway. “Seems like they hardly do anything come wintertime. No attacks, I mean. I think there’s something to that.”
As Ruth spoke, Coal heard only betrayal. He wasn’t interested in her theories of the Plague, or how best to fight it. He’d already found the way―the right way. Now, it seemed, he would be alone in that endeavor. “So this is it then?” said Coal. “End the Purgings. That’s the favor you’re asking?”
“I don’t need your favors, Henry. I can pull this city’s strings from all the way down in my kitchen just as much as you from your high up office. But then you already know that.” Ruth pulled herself from the bench, no more discussion to be had. “Better get home to Eve, Henry―storm’s coming,” she warned, looking to a darkening sky.
Strolling away deeper into the park, Mama Ruth left behind a fresh trail of shoeprints in the undisturbed snow heading in the direction of the old times. Coal chose not to follow. He left, instead, the same way he came.
-4-
Ruth had her connections, yet there was still one favor she could not live without. Coal considered this as well as its repercussions as he stepped with haste through a panicked city, twisting, turning, attempting to deflect all forms of human contact at every turn, failing. Sidewalk vendors battened down their stalls as the bustle of the city drained from the streets―the threat of a blizzard looming heavily. It was the furthest thing from Coal’s mind however. He occupied himself solely with the weight of Ruth’s betrayal, not only to himself, but to the city. His blood boiled.
As he entered the lobby of the city’s tallest of glass-plated towers, his office at the thirtieth floor, he made straight for the bank of elevators past the security desk and beyond the turnstiles. It was the only building in the city to retain such a luxury of functionality, the entire building humming with an abundance of electricity that was without its match. Uninitiated newcomers often found themselves resigned to the long march of the stairs, having spent a lifetime in a city unacquainted to conveniences, unaware that things such as elevators could even exist.
Coal stood, his foot tapping impatiently as he waited for one in the row of six elevators to arrive. Finally, there was a sharp ding and the doors of the far elevator pulled apart. He hurriedly stepped inside. Scanning the panel of numbered buttons, white and lifeless, lined in three columns of ten, his finger nearly pressed the one labeled 30 by force of habit. He stopped, found the one he meant for near the middle and pressed it instead, causing the button to illuminate to life in a ring of yellow light. Floor 16.
Coal watched as the line of numbers over the door lit up in succession as the elevator rose higher into the building before coming to a halt at his finger’s selection.
The doors parted and Coal set foot on a floor he had yet to traverse himself, yet his own words were routinely spoken there. The receptionist, a young woman with jet-black hair pulled tight in a bun, and faded pink scarf covering her mouth and nose, greeted Coal with only a perplexed stare from her piercing green eyes as if he were trespassing.
“I have a message to broadcast,” said Coal, “directly from the office of the mayor.”
The receptionist huffed, unimpressed. “Look, I get the mayor’s transcripts all the time. I know the mayor’s courier. You’re not him.”
A clock on the wall behind the desk showed 4:47. Coal watched the seconds ticking away, inching the minute and hour hands ever closer to five o’clock when the first of three evening city broadcasts went out over the airwaves. This was a message he wanted in all three.
“I am the mayor,” he corrected gruffly, picking hastily through his wallet to show his ID.
The receptionist leaned over the desk to view it closer, her eyes widening at the realization of her error, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, sir. It’s just I’ve never seen―”
“I need paper!” Coal demanded, the ticking of the clock ever present in his mind. The woman pulled open a desk drawer, produced a stack of seven or eight sheets of clean white paper and laid them haphazard before Coal’s hands, placing a black fountain pen on top. Coal hunched over, scratching away a message that would shake the city to its very foundation, severing the hand that pulled the city’s strings from the streets below. “I want this read at the top of each hour, and once more at the end of the final.”
“But the storm, sir. That’s
the―”
“I don’t give a damn about the storm!” Coal said, pounding the desk. “I want this broadcast just as I said, verbatim. Understand?”
Coal pushed the slip of paper into the receptionist’s chest until her fumbling hands could get hold of it. Speechless, she nodded her comprehension of the order given and rushed away at once down the hall, paper in hand. With an agitated look back toward Coal as he continued to watch her every move, the receptionist banged frantically on the broadcast booth door until at last―what felt like an eternity of waiting under Coal’s scrutiny―she was let inside.
-5-
Mama Ruth sat on a metal folding chair placed in the corner of the soon to be filled dining room of her downtown soup kitchen listening to an old clock radio tuned into the first of the city broadcasts. Spread on the table before her were several skeins of purple yarn whose ends trailed into a nearly completed scarf. Ruth took up her needles, adjusted the volume of the radio to hear over the crackles of static, and began to knit. It was in this way Mama Ruth took in the nightly news of her city―ensuring through the various reports that her orders had been carried out as given. It wasn’t easy running the city. It required equal amounts of work and wisdom. Akin, she thought, to raising a child.
On this night, however, there was one report even Ruth with all her connections had not seen coming―something beyond her own control. It was read over the airwaves with the solemnity and hesitation of a man condemning a fellow sister to her death―a name everyone knew.
For Ruth, what she heard was simple: Betrayal.
-6-
Wind howled through the dark city, sweeping across barren streets, driving a blinding wall of snow down all avenues. The cold bit Coal down to his bones. Lamplighters having abandoned their trade for a swift retreat home left not a single burning candle for guidance or warmth to accompany him. The wind pushed and slammed him, throwing all its punishment to the only soul foolish enough not to fear the storm as he took determined yet unsuccessful steps toward home.
One step gained was two steps lost.
As he trudged onward down the block, his body hugged as near the city buildings as he’d ever allowed, buildings in his mind just waiting for an outbreak of Plague to take hold, Coal became increasingly aware that this was no longer his city. Nor was it Ruth’s. Not this night at least. For now the city belonged to the storm, and Coal was subject to its whims. Never had he encountered such a dominant force before, feeling as though any moment the storm desired it could lift him from the ground like a plaything and hurl him beyond the wall into the world where the disease reigned supreme.
Without recourse, Coal surrendered to the storm’s unrelenting dominance, choosing shelter over death, seeking refuge in an old downtown insurance building long since occupied for dwelling. For Coal, the very act of opening the door was a feat of determination in and of itself―silencing his overwhelming desire for home.
At first, he thought the door to be locked. But that was merely the storm refusing to let him go, the wind pushing against his every attempt. About to give up, an arm appeared on the other side of the frost-covered glass, aiding Coal in his effort to defy the storm. The door opened a crack, just enough, and a hand reached out grabbing Coal by his wrist and tugging him inside.
“You must be outta your damn mind going out in that shit,” said Coal’s savior, a rough looking fellow with a brown scarf and brown eyes, a tattered green army surplus coat no doubt handed down through generations. “Tell me, you got a death wish or something?”
Coal shook his head. “I was just…try…trying to get home,” he stammered, frozen and out of breath, only now realizing how difficult it had been for him to breathe against the cold blasting wind.
“Home? Shit, wherever you was before you left shoulda been your home tonight. The name’s Leroy.” He reached down and grabbed Coal’s left hand for a handshake―a gesture Coal would otherwise not have made of his own accord.
“Henry,” said Coal, pulling his hand quickly away.
“Well, Henry, all I can say is you’re one lucky son of a bitch I got stuck with the building watch tonight. Storm like this, anybody else woulda skipped out. Who woulda figured there’d be anybody dumb enough to go out in this shit? Not me, anyway. But there ain’t nobody home to take care of―to keep warm. Old Leroy’s only got hisself to worry about. So I figure upstairs, downstairs, don’t really matter where I am―I’ll be freezing my ass off either way.”
Coal viewed the expanse of the building lobby, green marble floors and columns stretching back to lifeless elevators, a wood circular security desk at the center, a lit candle atop―Leroy’s station for the night―the entire room dark and frigid. Coal’s face was completely numb, his scarf wet with snow melted by his own hot breath. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms in a futile attempt to warm himself.
“Come on,” said Leroy. “I know a place you can warm up. Sure as hell ain’t gonna happen here.”
Leroy grabbed the candle from his desk, taking the curved handle of the brass holder in hand and extended it before him as he led Coal to a stairwell tucked at the back of the lobby.
Coal stopped, gazed upward into the winding staircase, overtook by remembrances of another building, one he seldom thought of anymore―his childhood home. His was a converted bank skyscraper, useless in the post-Plague world. As his mind wandered up the staircase, it conjured memories of floor after floor of crudely laid living spaces. Cramped. Uncomfortable. Makeshift walls of assembled junk separating families―little more than shantytowns.
But while Coal’s mind journeyed upward into the building, Leroy led him lower, down the stairs and through a heavy steel door with faded words of warning once bold in red paint. The furnace room. In the far corner stood a large menacing cylindrical wood-fire furnace, towering, glowing red through its grated square door, feeding directly into the building’s ductwork, pumping too little heat through too many floors. An ancient behemoth. A stack of chopped wood occupied the wall opposite the furnace, each piece a sacrifice waiting to be made.
Leroy guided Coal to the furnace, crouching down in its inviting heat himself. “Can’t say she does this building much good on nights like this, but you can bet she’ll warm your tookus down here. One of the perks of being on watch.”
Coal opened his coat and removed his gloves from his frozen hands, acting without hesitation in the presence of the warmth, allowing the heat radiating outward to flood down the unbuttoned cuffs of his shirtsleeves and pour into him.
“Ain’t that a welcome relief,” Leroy sighed. “Pity I already used up the night’s ration. Can’t ever get this thing cookin’ the way I want.”
Coal stood transfixed by the heat. There was something inside him, something primal awakened, yearning for the warmth. More! His hands reached up beyond his own control, grabbing hold of his coat, peeling it off his shoulders, allowing it to drop free. Next they tended to his scarf, pulling loose the final threads of protection, unwrapping one layer at a time from round his head until at last it fell to the floor, his bare face basking in the glow of the furnace.
He swayed in the heat, eyes closed, all of the worries that once weighed upon his mind evaporated into thin air, made nothing. The room swayed with him, moving to the flames dancing within the furnace. Only the warmth mattered now.
It was an overwhelming intoxication that befell Coal―a sudden addiction that begged for a fix. He stepped to the pile of collected wood carefully rationed for three months of heat and selected a piece that would serve to feed his body’s yearning, clutching it in his hand like a hunter marveling his prize.
His approach, however, was quickly halted as Leroy stood, arms crossed, between Coal and the furnace door. “Can’t let you do that, boss. Like I said before, we already used up the night’s ration. That wood’s got to last us two more months. You got any idea what they’d do to me if I let some asshole start dipping into our supply?”
Leroy reached for the firewood, bumping shoulde
rs with Coal, his hands fumbling to take control of the arm Coal kept tucked behind his back. Coal grasped the piece of wood even tighter, feeling a splinter dig into his palm. “Back off, Leroy!” He leaned into the building’s watchman giving a hard shove with his free right hand. Leroy’s scarf loosened in the scuffle, slipping down his face, coming to a rest around his neck and shoulders.
The room felt a blur to Coal―the glowing heat of the furnace his sole object of clarity. His eyes resolute to focus, gazed upon Leroy’s now uncovered visage. “Jesus!” Coal stumbled backward in horror at the sight before him, beholding a face covered in boils, skin blackened, corpselike around his mouth and nose.
“Man, you are nuts.” Leroy puffed his chest and stood his ground in front of the furnace, pointing to the stairwell. “Get the fuck out of here!”
Without thought, taking the wide chopped piece of wood into both his hands, Coal jabbed it into Leroy’s stomach, quickly and unexpectedly. Leroy doubled over, groaning an unintelligible swear. Coal then raised the wood above his head, bringing it down in one swift motion, bludgeoning the back of Leroy’s neck as he stood bent in half, sending him crashing unconscious to the floor.
Sickly moans and painful cries from a countless multitude filled the space of the room, loud and revolting. How had he not noticed them before? Coal’s hands clasped madly to his naked face, his own scarf gone, carelessly shed to the floor where Leroy now lay.
Coal collapsed, the weight of his mistake driving him to the ground, kicking and pushing himself a further distance away from Leroy’s diseased body. He gazed upward at the zigzagging ductwork overhead running the span of the room, stretching through the floors above tying the building together. There was no other explanation.
The voices―they’re coming from the ducts.
Coal felt the wails and groans pouring over him as water from a sprung pipe flooding the room. Inescapable. In the basement of a Plague-grasped building, he counted himself a man buried alive.
Plague City Page 2