by D. F. Noble
And Red, falling forward on his knees, splayed out. His mind, like a stone, fell into emptiness. The world disappeared, and for a second—or for an eternity—he disappeared with it. A void consumed him, darkness for eons and eons. Blacker than black, devoid of anything, light or memory or emotion.
***
An eternity later, there came specks of light.
What? Where is this? Where am I?
Red Crow felt immense speed and those specks became stars, and galaxies and distantly, Red Crow felt as if he were traveling through space and time and...
He heard a voice...
Not evil.
Something familiar... an old man's voice that he couldn't pin down.
How long has it been? I...I remember...I remember being human...I am...I am...I am Jake...I am Red Crow...
Through darkness he fell, surrounded by stars that sang their own histories, that sang of their hearts and minds. Through nebulae and the folds of space he traveled. He felt no body, nothing human, but instead he felt like a comet, a star zipping at the speed of light. Distant memories invaded his mind.
A flickering orange light lay ahead, and it was warm.
He moved towards it. He wanted its warmth, wanted to find this familiar voice...
P rologue
The Meek
A fire burns in the belly of a water tower. Ruddy light flickers about the faces of children and their elders alike. This is a holy place, the birthplace of a new people. This tower, it is their temple, their church and their Mecca. From here, in a relic of the old world, from The Before, the story is told to each new generation. It is written and drawn and taught to each child so that at least a piece of The Before will carry on.
An elder sits among them. His hair, full of frizzled and gray feathers, is pulled back away from the lines that course his face. His eyes are like bright and brilliant green jewels that sit amongst sand and time-worn stone.
“I will tell you,” he says, “of The First Day, but I will start by telling you that all the things you’ve heard about The Before are not true. We will go back, just a bit before The Change, so you know what it was like.”
The elder looks over his awe-swept audience. His words do not fall upon one deaf ear. He knows this, because he has told this story many times. The children of their people may be wild, but they are not mindless. The old world is known to them, and the ways of The Before course through their blood, but they are children of the new world. The wild and the wood, they are one with it. But they are not like the Madmen of the north, nor like the Eaters from the south. They are the Meek, the inheritors of the Earth.
“When I was small like you,” speaks the Elder, “the world was filled— everywhere you looked—with people, lights and their machines. We have shown you the videos, shown you the books and pictures. And when you are old enough to be scouts and warriors, you will see the Dead Cities with your own eyes…”
The Elder pauses, memories flooding over him. He wonders how it is for a child born in this world, this new wild age and how the technologies and sciences of the past must look like magic to them. And how after he was gone, and they themselves had grandchildren, would The Before be just a myth, a smoky legend? Certainly it would, if they did not preserve it.
“So,” he speaks, and opens a book, a notebook from The Before, a journal scrawled by the hand of a young boy, “before The Change…”
C hapter 1
The 6th Grade
“Why you hanging out with this white bitch, Ronnie?”
That’s me. I’m the white bitch he’s talking about, except I’m a boy, not a bitch. Ronnie, he’s my best friend. He’s black. I don’t care if he’s black. Me and Ronnie, we collect comics. We both draw good too, so sometimes we even make our own. We make our own superheroes, kid superheroes with wicked sweet powers that beat up bullies and their stepdads.
Right now, I wish we had super powers.
“He’s my friend,” Ronnie says. These two guys, they have us pinned in the alley. I think they’re in high school, they’ve got to be. They are way bigger than us. Me and Ronnie, we’re in the 6th grade. I’m pretty sure they’re going to beat us up—maybe just beat me up. I guess they don’t like white people.
“What we tell you last time, Ronnie?”
Ronnie mumbles something under his breath. He’s looking at the ground, so I look at the ground too.
“Say it so we can hear you, nigga.”
Ronnie speaks up, but his voice is all wavy. “You said… you said if I kept hanging out with Whitey you were going to beat the black out my ass.”
They laugh at us. I don’t like these guys. I don’t know why they feel like they have to pick on little kids. It’s stupid. These guys are assholes.
“That’s right, nigga,” one of them says. “Now it looks like we caught your ass.” He’s wearing a red baseball cap. I shouldn’t have looked, he saw me look. Shit.
“Don’t you look at me, little bitch,” Red Cap says.
I look down, look at his shoes. They’re pretty clean, almost brand new; maybe he washes them every night.
He slaps me in the mouth. I’m on the ground now. My eyes are watery; I think my nose is bleeding. I’m afraid to move. I don’t want them to beat me. I wish someone would come help. This is bad.
They laugh at me. Red Cap, he spits on me, kicks me in the stomach. Can’t breathe.
Red Cap tells me, “Stay down, white bitch.” So I stay down.
The other guy, he’s got long hair. They’re braids I think; I think they call them dreads. Dreads grabs Ronnie, I think the move is called a full nelson. I’ve seen it in the movies, and wrestling. Ronnie is crying.
I feel really bad I got him in trouble. I don’t understand why they hate me. I’ve never been mean to them. They’re just bullies.
“You got a choice, nigga,” Red Cap says. “I can beat yo’ ass, or I can beat this white bitch’s ass. You decide, nigga.”
Ronnie is crying hard now. I hate this. This is my fault. I wish I had something, something to hurt them with. I lay on the ground, peeking through my hands, trying to breathe. I can’t beat these guys up. All I have is a mechanical pencil in my pocket.
“Stop crying, bitch,” Red Cap says. “You better decide quick, or we gonna just beat the fuck outta both y’all.”
Ronnie whimpers, “Don’t hurt him, Chris. We won’t hang out anymore. I pro-promise.”
“See that,” Red Cap says. I think he’s talking to Dreads. “This nigga bitch is a traitor. You know what we do to traitors around here, Ronnie?”
“Please,” Ronnie begs. “Stop, please.”
Red Cap punches Ronnie in the face, punches him hard. It’s loud in the alley, that punch. Sounds like someone hit a board with a hammer. Dreads has to hold Ronnie up, he’s gone all limp.
Dreads laughs. “I think you knocked that nigga out cold!”
“Let him drop.”
Ronnie falls beside me. He’s breathing all funny. I’m so mad, but I’m so scared. I slide the pencil out of my pocket. I’m lying on my side, so they can’t see me do it. I don’t know what to do. If I fight them, they will only make it worse.
“What you lookin’ at, bitch?”
Shit. They saw me looking.
Red Cap kicks at me, but I tuck up in a ball and his toe hits my shin. It hurts, but at least it’s not my stomach, or my face. Then he’s on top of me, pulling my hand away from my face. I hide my other hand. I don’t want him to see the pencil.
Red Cap punches me. His fist hits my cheek, bounces my head of the ground. My brain feels like a pea in a tin can. I feel him turning me, I can’t stop him. He’s too strong.
“I said what you lookin’ at?!”
Another punch and he hits me in the eye.
“Say somethin’, bitch!”
I cry. His hands wrap around my neck. Hard to breathe. He’s really strong.
I hear Dreads. “Damn Chris, don’t kill him. He’s just a kid, nigga.”
Red C
ap snaps back, “Who you calling nigga, nigga?”
I hear footsteps, walking away. Dreads is leaving. He says, “Man, fuck this.”
Red Cap focuses back on me, choking me. I think he’s going to kill me. I have to do something.
“You think you better than me, white ass mothafucka?” I don’t know why Red Cap Chris is asking me that. I just want him to stop. I don’t understand any of this.
He squeezes tighter. My body is shaking, I can feel my lungs spasm. Black, black edges on my vision.
“Who’s better now, bitch? Huh, who’s better now-“
I wish I hadn’t. This is bad, this is really, really bad. I stabbed Red Cap. Shit, shit. I didn’t mean to stab him there. Shit, this is bad. Oh god. Oh god, there’s blood. Red Cap crawls away from me. I crawl away from him. His eyes are wide. My eyes are wide.
My mechanical pencil, it’s sticking out of his neck.
Red Cap tries to say something. Blood comes out. Blood comes out of his mouth. I’m crying really hard now. I can barely see. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t. I just wanted him to stop. Red Cap Chris, he’s trying to stand up. So much blood, oh fuck, I killed him, fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck.
He falls back on his knees. He’s looking at me. Red Cap is scared. His eyes are so big. I can’t look away from his eyes. Red Cap holds his throat. One of his legs is kicking out. He gurgles, more blood, his teeth are red. His neck is red. His white shirt, it’s red, red all down the front.
“Ronnie,” I say. “Ronnie, wake up!”
Ronnie doesn’t want to wake up. His eyes are rolled back, and he’s taking little breaths. Red Cap, he pulls the pencil out of his neck and looks at it. He tries to scream. I bet it hurts bad. Blood and a funny sound like a frog, that’s all that comes out of Red Cap.
I crawl to Ronnie. I shake him. He’s limp, like a big doll.
“Ronnie!”
Red Cap, he’s not dead. He’s getting up. He’s mad.
If he wasn’t going to kill me before, he will now. I know it. I look around. There’s half a brick, it’s all sharp on one side. I pick it up, I turn to Red Cap.
“Don’t,” I say. “Stop!”
He doesn’t listen. I throw the brick. I throw it as hard as I can. I play baseball a lot, I can throw really good. Even skipping stones, I’m really good. The brick, it hits Red Cap in the face, right in the nose. He falls over, he’s holding his face.
I don’t know why, but I grab the brick. I just want him to stop. I hit him with it. I hit him in the ear. He’s trying to hide his head with his hands. He’s not as strong anymore. I hit him again. His hat comes off. I hit him, again and again, in the hands, in the head, in the temple; anywhere I can hit him, I hit him.
I hit him till I hear a crunch.
Red Cap, he’s not holding his face anymore. He doesn’t move. What a mess. I feel weak, feel like I’m dizzy. Hamburger and ketchup, all over his head, that’s all that is. It’s not his brains. It’s not. Red Cap is dead. I didn’t want this. I didn’t mean to.
***
Ronnie’s awake finally, seems like it took forever. I’m glad he stayed out. Red Cap Chris, he was heavy. It was hard dragging him back by the dumpster. I put trash all over him, so Ronnie wouldn’t see. Hopefully no one will see. I don’t want people to know what I did. I don’t want Ronnie to know I killed him. Ronnie might hate me. He’s my best and only friend.
“Ronnie,” I say. “Hey, you okay?”
“Wha-what happened?”
He leans up on his elbow. He’s looking all confused, like he just woke up from a nap.
“They beat us up,” I say. “He hit you really hard. Knocked you out.”
Ronnie gives me a weird look, like he doesn’t fully understand what I’m saying. “There’s blood all over you.”
“I know,” I say, “he hit me in the nose. I bleed a lot.”
“Ugh,” Ronnie moans and sits up. “I hate those guys. They’re always picking on people.”
“I know,” I say. “Come on, let’s go home.”
I help Ronnie to his feet. He’s still pretty wobbly. I’m pretty wobbly, too. I feel worn out. I just want to go to bed. We walk home, me and Ronnie. Some people look at us—mostly me, I think, because of the blood. My shirt is black, though, so it doesn’t look so bad. Mostly we’re quiet. I think Ronnie feels bad. He tries to tell me that he’s sorry, but I tell him it’s okay.
“It’s not okay, Jake.”
“We’re alive,” I tell him, “it’s okay.” I see Red Cap’s eyes in my head. Staring at me, blank like a doll. Dead, but still staring at me.
“They won’t stop,” Ronnie says. “I wanna fight them. Someone needs to teach them.”
I keep quiet. We walk a while longer. I’m in big trouble, and I know it. I’m going to run away. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go home and pack my stuff and run. I’ll get out of this town. I’ll go live in the woods, and steal food out of fields in the country. I’ll live like an Indian. Anything sounds better than this town.
We get to Ronnie’s block. This is where we split ways. We could’ve taken the bus home, I keep thinking that. We could have taken the bus and none of this would’ve happened. But it was Friday and we always pooled what little money we could get so we could go buy a comic book. There is a little shop not far from school. Our parents didn’t really care, and we didn’t really bother telling them that we walked there almost every Friday. We would take the comics home or to a little clubhouse out in the trees by the bluffs and re-draw the superheroes. We wouldn’t trace them; that was cheating. We’d watch movies and cartoons and draw and make our own stories and talk about how we were going to grow up and be famous artists.
Maybe Ronnie would. I was never going to be an artist. I’m a killer. I’m a murderer. If they find out, they’re going to put in me Juvie. I’ll be one of those crazy kids that everyone looks down at. No one will come to visit. I’ll be taken away. I might stay in jail forever.
Ronnie looks at me. He’s sad and angry all at the same time.
“I don’t think we should walk around anymore after this, Jake.”
I nod. I try real hard not to cry in front of him.
“We’ll just hang at school,” Ronnie says. His fingers touch the spot on his jaw where Red Cap hit him. “Chris, he knows me. He lives by me. He won’t stop. I know him. He’s fucked up. Real fucked up. I think he does drugs.”
I nod and look away. I want to tell Ronnie that Chris—Red Cap— will never bother us again; at least not Ronnie. I know I’ll see him again, see him in my dreams.
“What if we take the bus?” I ask Ronnie. “We just go to your house or my house after school?”
Ronnie shakes his head. “No. I’m gonna tell my cousin Ty, I’m going to tell him about Chris. Ty will fuck him up. Maybe after that.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll see you Monday, I guess?”
“Yeah,” Ronnie says, and turns to walk away. “Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Me too.”
“See ya.”
I wave. I walk away. Nothing will be the same after this. I doubt I’ll ever see Ronnie again after today. I have to go. I walk a couple more blocks, thinking that I’m going to miss my little brother, Wes. He’s just a baby. He probably won’t remember me. That will be good for him. I might miss my mom, too.
I’m almost home when I hear sirens. I think maybe they found Chris Red Cap, found him under that trash I piled on him, found him with his skull all broken like an eggshell, with his brains showing.
I walk faster.
***
The town we live in, it’s called Hopp’s Hollow. It’s an old, creepy town, right next to Alton and the Mississippi River, tucked right up by the bluffs. I don’t like this place. Like Red Cap, there’s a lot of mean people here. Some nights, when I’m sitting up in my room by my window, I pretend I hear fireworks. It’s better to pretend. Better not to think of those pops and cracks as the gunshots they ar
e.
The houses here are old. Everything looks rundown. Some streets are paved with bricks. It looks like an old ghost town sometimes, like I’ve seen this place in a horror movie. Me and Ronnie, we would always say this place would look great for a zombie movie. You wouldn’t even have to build a set or put makeup on the people. That’s how bad it looks.
I moved here in the 4th grade. Ronnie was the only good thing about this place. We were both new kids, so we banded together. The other kids, they never really liked us. I don’t know why; some people are just like that.
This place is evil. That’s what I think.
I might be evil now, too. One of them—the bad guys.
We live on the outskirts of town, just down the road from the school. Out here, though, the city starts to turn to country, and there are fields and woods. Our house is big, like an old farmhouse; Mom says it's colonial. I think that means old, or from the Civil War, but I'm not sure. I see my driveway up ahead. I’m starting to get scared now. But my mom isn’t home. That means the house is empty.
Inside my own house and I feel like a thief— that’s exactly what I am, what I will be. Mom has a pistol under the mattress; Dad left it for her. I’m not supposed to know about it. It’s the cowboy kind, a revolver. It’s not real big, not like the one Clint Eastwood has, but it’s big enough. I know how to use it. My dad taught me how to use guns, and I’m a pretty good shot. I open the cylinder, it’s full of bullets. In the sock drawer there’s a box of rounds and a wad of money. I’m not supposed to know about that either, but kids know a lot of stuff they’re not supposed to. Here I am, a thief in my own house. I take an old backpack, and I fill it up. In goes toilet paper, a big mean kitchen knife, all the snack-cakes and cans of soda I can fit, a fork and a knife, a package of lighters, a flashlight and a couple pairs of socks and underwear. I wish I could take more, but the bag is heavy already. It will have to do. The pistol, it’s stuffed in my belt. I’m almost ready to go, just need to wash this blood off, when I hear my mom's car pull into the driveway.