by M. E. Parker
“Come on, Myron. Let’s go as far as we can. I’m a rail-walker. I can scrounge.”
The same thought had crossed Myron’s mind earlier as he reconsidered accelerating his escape plan. “I’ve been planning a way out of here. Maybe we could go now, but I think I need more time.”
“I don’t have time. Things are bad for me.” Sindra stared right into his eyes. “Where would we go?”
Myron had a hard time imagining how she had it any worse than he did. She even managed extra rations. Her defiant spirit had little tolerance for captivity. He sat down beside her, almost convinced to make a run for it now, and dug into his smock for his prized postcard of Bora Bora.
“That’s beautiful.” Sindra’s eyes widened.
“It’s a postcard note. People in the Old Age used to send each other keepsakes when they journeyed to faraway places.” The picture on the card had faded, the colors had grayed, but underneath the crisscrossing veins of wear was a photograph of a beach with a single arching palm tree. “That’s where I’m headed. Bora Bora.”
“I wonder what it says.” Sindra leaned over Myron’s shoulder until he could feel her curves on his back.
Myron hesitated, having kept his ability to read secret for so long. “Our flight was delayed in Los Angeles. We had to take a puddle jumper from Tahiti, but we’re finally here in paradise. I’ve already got you a souvenir mask. I hope you’re minding your grandmother. P.S. Eat your green beans.”
“It’s so amazing that you can read.” Sindra scooted farther toward him until their legs touched. “Can you teach me?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Los Angeles?” She took the postcard. “The broken city at the bottom of the sea?”
“I don’t know about anywhere else. Only Bora Bora. That’s where I’m headed.”
“It’s wondrous.”
“That’s why I need more time. When I go—when we go,” he corrected, unable to hide the blush he felt on his cheeks, “it has to be over the Gorge.” He sailed his hand through the air. “That’s the only way out of here.”
“Over?”
Myron nodded, as Sindra’s face twisted into a doubtful pout. “I’m building a flying machine. An airship like my grandfather’s.”
“What, exactly, is an airship?” Her lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed.
Myron could explain what an airship was, but he had no words to convey the sensation of flying, something he had experienced only once, when he was twelve. Up over Richterville, over the village chimneys, each one with a trail of gray like hundreds of mouths blowing out pipe smoke. The air had been thick with brown and gray from nearby factories until they breeched the smoke where the air felt like a gossamer sheet, as though a sky that clear might shatter like a pane of glass with the slightest noise. That day his grandfather explained that a balloon only goes where the wind takes it. An airship, with its rudder and propeller, goes where the pilot takes it.
Before he could answer Sindra, Myron heard what sounded like a crunch of footsteps on dry brush. A shiver ran up his neck. He held his finger to his lips.
As he turned around, a hand grabbed his arm with as much force as a pressure clamp. Myron squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for a paralyzing blow from a discipline rod. Instead, a body, furry and damp, pressed against his back, wrenching his arm until his shoulder throbbed. A blast of hot breath hit the nape of his neck. It smelled of rotting flesh and excrement, turning Myron’s stomach. In a low whisper that sounded like wind on a window pane, a voice said, “I’ll tell you what an airship is.”
Sindra gasped and jumped behind a far pew.
Night had fallen, and without the flashlight, the only light that remained was the distant reflection of the factory lamps off the low blanket of smoke overhead. Myron jerked his arm, hoping to break free. Unable to make out the man who had materialized in front of him, Myron saw only gray and brown fur with patches of hide, making it impossible to tell where the fur stopped and the man’s beard began. The furrowed skin surrounding his eyes was the only part of his face not swallowed by hair. Hoping the wild man standing before him had already eaten and had no designs on human flesh, Myron backed away. “Who are you?”
“Me? I’m a coyote,” the man proclaimed. “What you hill monkeys call a goat fox. Only creature left that’s crafty enough to survive in this rotten land.”
“Goat foxes don’t talk.”
“I wasn’t born a coyote.” The hairs in his beard flared when he spoke, but Myron could not see a mouth. “But I became one. When they took me in and let me live among ’em.” He gave a yip and howl that mimicked the sounds that came from the rim at night.
Myron had heard goat foxes called coyotes before. His grandfather had said that they could drink brackish water and eat cockroaches if it came down to survival, but he’d never met a person claiming to be one.
The man pointed to the Great Gorge. “I know what you’re up to, boy.” He poked his finger into Myron’s chest and twisted in Sindra’s direction. “I see you over there too, girly.”
Sindra ducked behind the pew, out of sight.
“I used to call that bunker home. Till it started filling up with garbage. Same as every other damn place. Garbage and smoke.” He reached over the pew and grabbed Sindra, pulling her up by her hair. Sindra grunted, twisting and kicking to break free. “This slippery fellow is building some sort of flying contraption.” He poked Myron again in the chest.
Myron’s heart sank. His secret, the fate of all his plans, now rested on the whims of a kook who thought himself a coyote. Myron elbowed the man in the ribs and jerked free. Seizing her opportunity, Sindra kicked him in the knee and twisted loose. “Run!” Myron shouted. Sindra broke into the shadows of the vestibule, and Myron ran the other way, hoping to confuse the Coyote Man.
“You’re not flying anywhere without me!” The man yelled.
Coyote Man snatched him by the smock as Myron jumped into the dry creek bed that ran beside the chapel. His smock ripped, but he worked himself loose. Coyote Man tumbled into the creek bed behind Myron, groping for a handhold.
“Come back here.”
Staying in a crouched position, Myron jogged along the creek and hopped out near the tunnel opening where Sindra, still out of breath, waited with a rock in her hand. The rusty hinges on the tunnel hatch squealed when Myron eased it open. He scanned the darkness for any signs of Coyote Man, wondering if he’d heard the noise. As soon as the hatch opened, Sindra climbed down into the collapsed tunnel ahead of Myron.
Keeping as quiet as possible, Myron held his hand out and nodded at the star he’d given Sindra. She shook her head, but Myron insisted. He didn’t want to leave it here, but she couldn’t risk having it in her domicile. He dug a hole in the dirt to hide it.
Myron entered the tunnel first, feeling his way until he could safely use the flashlight where Coyote Man wouldn’t notice any flashes of light. Sindra followed, her body pressed up against his. Their pace slowed as they navigated the jagged tunnel where the narrow openings required them to crawl. Sindra knew all his secrets now—Bora Bora, his flying machine—but so did that Coyote Man. Knowing he was out there, running free on the fringes of Jonesbridge, made Myron fearful for his plan.
When they reached the grate behind the domicile quad, Myron stowed his flashlight behind the ladder, and the tunnel faded into darkness. He stared into the black for a while, listening for movement in the tunnel, any signs that they were followed.
“You’re not like other people,” Sindra whispered.
As he turned around, she kissed him, a long kiss, their lips pressed together, the way he imagined two people might kiss if they were paired for mating, a silent vow that strengthened Myron’s resolve to get them both out of Jonesbridge.
Myron took a deep breath, now more cautious than ever. “Can’t risk going together. You go first. I’ll go after the ghosts go by, so I can get the grate back on.”
Myron waited and listened for the ghosts on patrol. After they passed, he opened th
e cover and made a stirrup with his hands for Sindra to step in, then heaved her up though the opening. A gust of frosty wind whipped her hair as she crawled onto the ground. Sindra looked over her shoulder at Myron. The hem of her burlap smock twirled as she hopped to her feet. Their eyes met, and Myron waved her on, already in mid-count to estimate when the ghosts would return.
Moments after he closed the grate, inches away from his nose, a dark blob suddenly obstructed his view. He recognized the shape of it, a boot heel square in the middle of the grate, now two; only ghosts wore boots. Myron’s hands trembled as a wave of numbness traveled the length of this body, hoping Sindra had managed to make it out of sight. He couldn’t figure why the ghosts hadn’t followed their routine. They should have moved on by now.
“Oh, it’s my lucky night,” the voice over the grate said. Myron saw the smudge of a hand grab Sindra’s arm. “I don’t even have to share you tonight.”
The ghost muffled Sindra’s scream with his hand right before she bit it. Myron pressed on the grate, now sealed by the weight of the ghost and Sindra.
“Get off me,” Sindra hissed. There was a shuffle of feet and fabric rippling, but he heard the struggle, and then Myron caught a glimpse of Sindra’s eyes, sad and submissive, the wild in them defeated.
Myron heard rustling and snorts and grunts. When he heard Sindra’s voice, his insides churned. He had seen a lot of things in Jonesbridge, but he realized then that he hadn’t seen the one thing that never even crossed a slog’s mind—which was why Sindra had it so bad.
Myron pushed on the grate, not sure what he would do if the grate actually lifted. With the weight of Sindra and the ghost, the wooden grid didn’t budge. Ripping burlap preceded a flap of loose fabric that billowed across the grate, revealing flashes of Sindra’s bare flesh through the grid. After a slap of hands on skin, Myron caught bits of a leg, her midriff, and then a part of Sindra’s body, her gender, that Myron shouldn’t have seen. The ghost’s pants slumped around his ankles, and Sindra’s body raised as she screamed and pleaded.
Hearing the ghost’s grunts, Myron squeezed his eyes shut. Coyote Man or not, he still had faith in his plan to escape Jonesbridge, and now his plan included Sindra. He conjured the image of waves breaking on the shore near an arching palm tree with Sindra under it smiling. Behind her, the grass from the hut, just like the one on the postcard, fluttered with the ocean breeze. No smoke, no war, no toil, only he and Sindra and what remained of the grand beasts of the ocean. Myron had stifled his tears as a silent witness the day his mother died, but now, he took a deep breath and heaved against the grate, this time cracking it.
“What the…” The ghost yelled.
Again, Myron slammed against the grate with enough force to knock the ghost, with lowered pants, off balance. The grate popped up from the ground. The ghost and Sindra fell against the rear wall of the domicile quad. Myron emerged from the tunnel with the heavy wooden grate in hand and whipped the ghost’s head with it hard enough to knock him off of Sindra, who lay on the ground with her legs pulled apart. Myron looked away. Blood trickled from the ghost’s head.
“Are you okay?” Myron picked up the ripped fabric and tried to cover Sindra’s exposed areas. “I didn’t know they—”
“They take whatever they want,” Sindra sobbed.
Myron held his hand to her mouth and pointed toward voices.
Sindra shook her head and pointed to the tunnel.
Myron showed her the wooden grate that had splintered in half, “Run, Sindra.” He pushed her toward the quad. “Before he wakes up.” Behind them, they heard the ghosts on patrol.
Chapter 5
Myron shuffled along with the crowd. He hadn’t yet spotted Sindra this morning, and he could hardly wait to see her on the factory floor. Considering he made it back to his domicile and had not yet been apprehended, he felt confident the ghost he struck hadn’t seen his face. But he worried about Sindra, whether the ghosts would blame her.
As he approached the salvage factory, Myron observed a peculiar blue swatch of sky. No one else seemed to notice, trudging down the path, heads down, but the smokestacks burned a little lighter today than usual, allowing striations of sunlight to pierce the haze. Almost late for his shift already, he paused to enjoy the sight, knowing it wouldn’t last.
At 7:00 A.M. the factory siren wailed from atop a stanchion in the salvage yard. It emitted a prolonged howl, hiccupped, and then ebbed into a moan, distinguishable from an attack warning only by the length of the interval. The day shift began this way, as the night shift ended, every day, seven days a week without exception.
Ninety-nine workers, already in place on the factory floor, stood at attention, arms straight down, chests out, eyes focused on the flag that hung like a tapestry on the towering south wall. Myron shuffled through the human pillars to fill the remaining empty workplace farthest away from the door, ears tuned to the audio box that hung from the ceiling. The anthem began just as Myron got into position. As the thunderous drums rolled in ahead of a chorus of bugles, all one hundred workers were accounted for.
Following a customary minute of silence, the Superintendent of Industry began his admonition for the shift, a communication that began with high-pitched feedback, followed by a wave of static, as though his words traveled through a field of broken glass before reaching the speaker.
“It saddens me to report that late last night, while our farmers slept, our enemy launched a surprise attack on the northern farms, devastating our last tract of untainted farmland anywhere north of Simonville.”
A subdued chatter filled the work floor. Myron remembered the proud moment four months ago when the Superintendent referred to the narrow swath of clean ground only recently discovered.
“In your mirror this morning,” the Industry Superintendent continued, “you saw the nose, eyes, ears and mouth—the face of our body. We are diminished now by hundreds—all citizens like you, lost last evening at the hands of our enemies. Your expression in that mirror, on the street, in the factory, is our reflection. If you are smiling, you are informing your world that you are happy,” again he paused, a silence that filled with air like a balloon, until it finally popped. “Happy that hundreds of your fellow citizens are now gone? Satisfied with your production on the line? Gleeful that every moment you grin, someone else’s life hinges on your job? Today is not a happy day.” The voice disappeared again beneath a blanket of static and half-words before the box went silent.
Myron surveyed the expansive room at his fellow workers, relieved to see Sindra in her usual workspace. They all wore the austere countenance prescribed by the Superintendent of Industry, especially Sindra, who Myron imagined might never smile again. The fate of the body did weigh on Myron in the moments after the announcement, but he couldn’t shake what happened last night. He could only watch Sindra listening to the daily admonition as though nothing had happened the night before.
Myron’s grandfather had prayed often, and he told Myron that praying was once a common thing to do. People then, when his grandfather was a kid, prayed a lot, prayed for rain from the heavens, prayed for safety, prayed for peace and prosperity, for whatever need arose, especially in dire times. Myron wondered if each person had a predetermined number of answered prayers, somewhat like the number of tokens he made piecemeal every day, and if he exhausted his prayer tokens, when he required something from the Great Above later, when his very existence depended on it, would he have nothing left from which to draw his request?
He considered a prayer to keep his airship safe, prevent Coyote Man from finding it and destroying it in a fit of wild rage, but instead, he would ask from the Great Above that Sindra would never have to endure such a violation again. He only had a few more supplies to gather, and now he would do whatever he had to do to get both of them over the gorge and on their way to Bora Bora.
Myron had assumed from the lengthy pause that the Superintendent had concluded his morning report, but a garbled wave of static broke the
silence in the room. The Superintendent cleared his throat. “Last evening, one of our dutiful Civil Guards sacrificed his life in the line of duty for the Alliance.” Myron had a sudden pain in his throat. “You owe your safety and comfort, your ability to work unhindered by fears of the enemy to the tireless efforts of our brave Civil Guard. Rest assured traitors are swiftly identified and exterminated.”
The salvage floor erupted into gasps and murmurs. Myron couldn’t breathe or swallow. A tingling sweat broke out on his forehead and he heard a faint ringing in his ears as though all of the blood in his body had suddenly gushed straight to his head. He rubbed his face, trying to focus. The sea of eyes across the room scanned from one slog to the next. He glanced at Sindra, and three workstations over, he noticed Saul staring at her too.
Myron tried to recall how hard he’d hit the ghost, seeing in his mind the oozing blood. Hearing that the ghost had died made him woozy and confused. When something happened to a ghost, nothing would stop them from getting to the truth. But no one, not even his fellow slogs, ever mentioned Martino’s murder. There had been no announcement, no demand for justice for a common slog, only a ripple in the canal where Martino disappeared.
“Get to work,” Rolf barked.
Myron had no idea how he could work today. His hands trembled, he saw double, and his temples throbbed as if he had struck himself with a hammer, but he had no choice. With his tool bench positioned, he arranged his bins, preparing for a twelve-hour shift, all part of the rote mechanics of a job that began the same way every day, a process that continued with him yanking the lever above his head to sort through what came out. Gears, as usual, scrap, wires, a jumble of dull blades—Myron slipped on his gloves and gingerly spread the items, scanning for anything he could use on his airship. He had run out of time to gather materials for his escape, a flight that would have to happen now whether he was ready or not.
Unlike his fellow slogs, who bemoaned the drudgery of the factory floor, Myron marked his time putting together the puzzle of the present, and sometimes the past, based on the relics that crossed his bench. He admitted that most of it amounted to little more than battle debris and powder-fused mash-ups of twice recycled garbage, but every now and then another piece to the riddle of history fell onto his bench.