Afterland

by Masha Leyfer

  “Good,” Smaller Sally says, scooting closer to the boundary between our two cells. “Because I have some things to settle with you. Veronica. You first. I hear you saved Mike’s life once.”

  “Mike Kerman?” She raises her eyebrows in recognition. “Yeah, I did. You know him?”

  “Yes, we’re friends of his.”

  “Well, well. If we ever get out of here, tell him I say hello.”

  “Okay,” Smaller Sally frowns discontentedly. “I will. But right now, I would like to thank you for saving Mike’s life. I don’t know how, when, or why you did it, but in any case, thank you.” Veronica bows her head. “And James,” Smaller Sally turns her steely gaze to the right. “About you, I hear that you tried to kill Mike. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is. And the only regret I have is that I didn’t succeed.” Smaller Sally’s eyes burst into flames and she grabs James by the collar of his shirt through the cell bars.

  “Listen up, James,” she says in a dangerous whisper, bringing her face to his ear. “I don’t care what motivations you think you may have had, but whatever they were, they don’t justify harming Mike. Mark my words, the moment we get out of this cell, I am going to make you regret everything.” She glares at him. “Don’t you dare touch Mike ever again, you understand me?” James doesn’t respond. “Do you understand me?” She shouts again, shaking him by the collar. James nods. She lets go of him, throwing him halfway across the cell in the process. She dusts off her hands. “Alright,” she says sweetly. “Now that that’s settled, we have a bigger issue to solve: we have to get out of here.”

  “We’re not,” Veronica says. “We’re dying tomorrow.”

  “Alright, you are either going to contribute or shut up. Now, where’s the guard? Still passed out? Good, so we can discuss, but keep your voices down, we don’t want to wake him. Ugh, my head hurts like hell. All right, first of all: how and when are we being killed tomorrow?”

  “I assume their morning sacrifice,” James says. “Usually they sacrifice a chicken heart or something like that, but I hear that they get rid of prisoners the same way.”

  “Which is how?”

  “They rip out your beating heart and set your body aflame.”

  A shudder of fear goes through my spine at his words. These people are serious about their deaths. But Smaller Sally doesn’t seem as affected by James’ grim prophecy.

  “What is this, the ancient Mayan empire?” she scoffs. “All right, tell me more about this sacrifice.”

  “It happens very early in the morning, somewhere around six o’clock. They take you down and perform the sacrifice and throw your heart into the...what do they call it?”

  “Temple of Decomposition, more commonly known as the Courtyard,” Veronica supplies.

  “Yes, exactly. Temple of Decomposition. Pretentious lot, these bastards.”

  Smaller Sally frowns. “All right, first of all, who’s they?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You said that they take you down and do the sacrifice or whatever. Who’s they?”

  “A couple of men. They’re...um….I don’t want to say priests,”

  “Executioners is the word you’re looking for.”

  “Not exactly. They’re the ones in charge of the sacrifices, is what you need to know.”

  “And the sacrifice: is it public or is it done in a building somewhere?”

  Veronica and James exchange a quick glance.

  “We’re not sure,” Veronica says. “All we know is that it’s in a place called the Courtyard. But even if it is public, how many people do you think will come see it? It is extremely early.”

  “Well, the Carviates are a cult that worships murder.”

  “True. But why does the amount of people matter?”

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can figure it out yourself, what, have you never been in a battle?” Smaller Sally rolls her eyes. “It matters because there’s really only a certain amount of people that we can fend off, obviously.”

  Veronica rolls her eyes in response.

  “You’re beating a dead horse. We are going to die.”

  “Listen up, Veronica,” Smaller Sally says. “You need to shut up and listen to what I’m saying. I couldn’t care less if you live or die, all right? You are nothing to me. But if you die, we die too. So pay attention to what I’m saying. We will return you to Augustus and then you can go off and die all you want. But for now, you are going to shut up and live.”

  Veronica doesn’t respond but her face retains its dry sarcastic smirk. Smaller Sally turns to me.

  “Molly, what do you have that could be useful?” I look around to make sure that we aren’t being watched and pull a knife from my boot—a habit that I picked up from Emily. Always be prepared. Always be armed to the teeth and then some, she would always warn me.

  “This,” I say and pull another knife from a chain around my neck. “Also this. I have a medical kit in my backpack, and…” I stick my hands into my sweater pockets. “Ah. I have a match box.”

  “Good,” Smaller Sally says. “Put it all away before anybody sees it. I have a knife,” she taps her boot as well, “And darts. What about the three of you?”

  “We don’t have anything,” James says. “All we had when we came here were guns and they took those away.”

  “So we have four weapons total, matches, and medical stuff, yes?” Smaller Sally confirms. I nod. “We can work with that. These sacrifices, you say the priests or sacrifice masters or whatever you call them take us down to the Courtyard, whatever that is. That means that we have that entire trip to deal with them.”

  “You want to kill them,” Veronica says.

  “Not necessarily. As long as they’re out of the way for long enough to allow us to escape.”

  “You think the five of us, keeping in mind that Drew is disabled, so it’s really just four of us and maybe only the two of you if Drew gets any worse, can take on trained Carviate murderers?”

  “Sure we can. How many of them are there total? ”

  “Two, technically, so-”

  “Two! So we outnumber them more than two to one!”

  “But they’re trained murderers.”

  “And we’re not?” Smaller Sally says evenly. Veronica nods slowly.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now listen to the plan.” She leans in and beckons us all closer. Before beginning to speak, she looks around to make sure nobody is watching.

  “They’re coming sometime in between five and six in the morning. We have four weapons. That’s one for every able bodied person.”

  “I’m still able bodied,” Drew objects, suddenly waking up. “All I have is a little infection.”

  “Look who decided to join the party.” Veronica says.

  “Everyone will get one,” Smaller Sally continues, ignoring them. “Drew, you just stay out of the way.”

  Veronica smiles sourly.

  “Do you trust us?”

  “No, but what do you get out of killing us?”

  “Admittedly, nothing,” Veronica says, nodding. “Continue.”

  “We need to get rid of the sacrificers, priests, whatever. I’ll just call them priests. They need to be at least not able to chase us or call somebody who can. Do you know if anybody will notice that the sacrifice hasn’t been performed?”

  “We’re not sure. We don’t know much about the sacrifices. We already told you all we know.”

  “All right. Let’s assume that they will within fifteen minutes. So we have fifteen minutes to get out of here.”

  “That’s your plan?” Veronica asks skeptically.

  “Yes. Do you have any problems?”

  “It’s extremely vague.”

  “Do you have better ideas?” Veronica doesn’t respond. “That’s what I thought. You three get knives.” She pulls out her knife and I pull out one of mine. We hand them through the cell. “Hide them,” Smaller Sally says. I a
m impressed at how cool she is in a near death situation. “And I’m keeping the darts.”

  “And how do you suggest that we get out of the city?” Veronica asks, tucking the knife into her shoe.

  “Molly, do we still have the grappling hooks?”

  “Yeah, they’re in the backpacks.”

  “In that case, we’re using grappling hooks,” Smaller Sally tells Veronica.

  “And me?” Drew asks.

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t really have use of one of my legs.”

  Smaller Sally frowns.

  “Didn’t you just say you were able bodied?” she sighs. “But we can work with it. We’ll figure you out when he becomes a problem.”

  “Drew, you’re always a problem,” James sighs.

  “All right, stop complaining,” Smaller Sally says before Drew can retort. “They didn’t take our backpacks, which is...interesting. Alright,” she faces the Sternmenschen again. “We’ll regroup tomorrow, but for now, keep your mouths shut.”

  Veronica frowns and I can tell that Smaller Sally’s words irritate her.

  “Who put you in charge?”

  “Would you like to challenge it?” Smaller Sally says coldly.

  “Maybe I would,” Veronica responds.

  “Go ahead.”

  Veronica’s jaw tenses and she looks like she’s about to lash out, but instead she relaxes and says, “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Good,” Smaller Sally responds and they both stand up and move to the opposite sides of their respective cells. I stand up and move to face Smaller Sally. She clenches and unclenches her fists slowly.

  “Hey. You good?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” She shoots a glance over at the neighboring cell. “I just really don’t like her.”

  “Yeah, she’s a bit of a—wait a second,” I grin despite myself. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of Veronica?” She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms. “Why would I be jealous of Veronica?”

  “She said she saved Mike’s life once.”

  “Oh! No, no of course not. That’s the one reason I tolerate her. I just think that she feels too entitled.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I would never be jealous of another woman because of Mike. He’s mine.”

  “Hmm.”

  “He was mine back then too, just so you know.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “No, I do, I just find you very amusing.”

  “Do you know what, Molly?”

  “What?”

  Before she can answer, Cecilia comes down the stairs and slams her gun against the wall to get our attention.

  “Oy! Keep your mouths shut in there, you hear me? Where the hell’s Chris? Is he sleeping? Chris, Jesus Christ, are you drunk again?” She addresses the sleeping guard with the bottles strewn around him. “Chris, wake the hell up!” she shouts and fires a bullet into the wall right above his head. The five of us jump and Chris jolts awake.

  “What the hell?..” he begins to say, still in a drunken stupor.

  “Do your goddamn job and watch the damn prisoners,” Cecilia says coldly. “Next time I shoot, I won’t be missing your head. And as for you lot,” she turns to us, “keep quiet and don’t test your luck.” She gives each of us a cold stare in turn, then storms up the stairs in a manner somewhere in between regalism and mass destruction.

  “Christ,” Chris says smoothing down his hair. He picks up his gun and shoots us a dirty look.

  “You be quiet, you hear?” he says acidly even though none of us are saying anything and he has never heard us speak. He pulls out a can of chewing tobacco, throws some some in his mouth and begins pacing around in front of our cell, occasionally muttering, “Be quiet, be quiet, ya nasty foreigners.” I find it ironic. We all come from the same country, at least at some point in our histories. There hasn’t been any travel since the Blast so he couldn’t have come from overseas. And besides, his accent is local. We sit in silence, observing him in silent intrigue. He chews and spits out half a can of tobacco and finally settles back down into his chair and falls asleep again, still muttering to himself: “Nasty foreigners. Be quiet, be quiet, ya…”

  I turn to Smaller Sally.

  “Did you notice that they didn’t search us?” I whisper. “All they took were our guns.”

  “Yeah. It’s strange.”

  “Do you think it’s too establish dominance?”

  “How so?”

  “They’re sending a message: we’re not afraid of you, no matter how armed you are.” Smaller Sally considers this and shrugs.

  “Could be,” she says. “Could be.”

  We continue sitting in silence.

  “What about them?” I ask in a whisper so that our neighbors don’t hear, nodding towards the neighboring cell. “What do you know about the Sternmenschen?”

  “Those three individually or the entire group?”

  “Both”

  “I don’t know much,” she sighs. “Mike rarely speaks about his time as a Sternmann and I never ask. All he says is that it’s more of a cult than anything else and that he wishes he could go back in time and take his initiation back. He always spits over his right shoulder when he mentions them.”

  “Wow. He must really hate them, huh? Did he ever say anything more...specific? You know, for example, what makes them a cult or what their core principle is?”

  “No.”

  “Not even to you?”

  “Not even to me.”

  “Hmm.” I scoot over to the other side of the cell. “Hey,” I call out.

  “What do you want?” Veronica answers.

  “What were you guys doing here in the first place?”

  “You know, somebody once told me that asking the wrong questions is like taking lies and trying to pretend that they are truths.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “We had business here.”

  “Business, huh?” I pause for a moment. “What do you guys even do? I mean, what are the Sternmen?”

  “Sternmenschen,” Veronica corrects me.

  “Yes, the Sternmenschen: what do you do?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” she says turning away.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s against the Codes.”

  “The Codes?”

  James scoffs.

  “The Codes are supposed to be the sacred laws of the Sternmenschen. They’re like the Bible and they dictate how you live your life. They also don’t exist, but some crazy, dedicated Sternmenschen, like Veronica here, follow them anyway based off of thirteen years worth of folklore and Augustus’s compilations of bullshit.”

  “The Codes are real, James, they were created by the original Sternmenschen to make sure their traditions lived on for generations,” Veronica responds calmly. “How can you call yourself a Sternmann if you don’t follow them?”

  “The Codes are a myth that was invented by Augustus to control us.”

  “Listen, James, I know that you have problems with Augustus, but that’s ridiculous.”

  “This is beyond my problems with Augustus.” James is getting progressively more irritable while Veronica keeps her cool. It seems almost like she has escaped into a different reality.

  “I follow the Codes. If you have a problem with that, you can face the consequences yourself.”

  “Maybe I will,” James says and turns back to me. “You want to know what the Sternmenschen are about? I’ll tell you. I got nothing to lose. The goal of the Sternmenschen is to live life properly and to the fullest.”

  “That sounds like Buddhism,” Smaller Sally calls from her corner.

  “I suppose at first it does. But it’s not. The thing about Sternmannship is that you’re supposed to follow a very specific set of rules. Supposedly, these rules originated with the Codes, but the truth is, they originated when Augustus got drunk on power. Most of them aren’t unreasonable
at all. In fact, many of them are beneficial and many are just so specific and unnecessary that you wouldn’t ever encounter them. But the thing that bothers me about them is the fact that Augustus invented them because he can. He’s the only one of us who knew the original Sternmenschen and that gives him power to say what he wants. Supposed Code number thirty-seven: The truth is the truth no matter how and from whom it is uttered and a lie is a lie no matter in what form it is brought to the world. Code number nineteen: A lie will be discovered because the truth is the only rightful tenant of this world. Code forty-five: If a lie is uttered, you must ignore the lie and live life without it, because a heart of lies can not be a heart of life. Augustus is a liar and his lies are catching up with him.”

  “Oh,” I say more because I’m not sure what else to say than because I understood anything that he said. We don’t say anything for a long time.

  “Code number one,” Veronica says after what must have been at least an hour. “The first code. Everything has meaning and your life is one million chances to change the world. Code one hundred and twenty seven. The last code. From the stardust we have come, to the stardust we shall go.” Nobody says anything and Veronica repeats it again. The words sound strange in her mouth, almost as if she is realizing for the first time that she hates her favorite food.

  “From the stardust we have come, to the stardust we shall go.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Unwillingly, I begin to doze off. My sleep is restless and interrupted. My knife lies heavily on chest and my back protests the hard ground. But most of all, anticipation of the following morning keeps me up. This is the first time my life has been placed into my hands and I have such an easy chance to drop it. For the first time I realize how fragile my survival is. I always considered my existence a fact. I never really imagined it any other way. How could it be any other way? Of course, I understood and envisioned my own death constantly and the girl dying in my imagination was always me currently, but I realize now that I never actually believed in those visions and most importantly, I never saw my cause of death as preventable, Nothing I did would have saved me. Now, my next move dictates whether I live or die.

  I had excused myself from death, in a way, by telling myself that my life and my death were on two different levels. But they’re not. Death is just as blunt and human as life.