by Steven Bohls
Moving onward, he found a dull-red backpack and stuffed it with the few cans of food he found along the way. Even though the backpack was oily, sooty, and worn, the smudge of red made him feel a bit warmer in the gloomy expanse.
Jed’s journey forward ended abruptly as he stepped into a puddle of muck that sloshed over his shoe. He pulled his foot back and looked up to see the edge of a river of thick oil. The river cut across his path, bubbling and oozing past in slow motion. It was too wide for Jed to jump across. A bridge of tangled barbed wire, rebar, and chain-link fencing spanned the small gulch to his left. Jed walked to the bridge and tested its sturdiness, putting one foot down and slowly adding more weight before fully committing to a step. The rebar groaned, and the chain link rattled. He wanted to steady himself with the handrails, but barbed wire spiraled around them.
Why would a bridge have handrails covered in barbs?
Jed watched the oil course beneath him. Can people float in oil? He thought of the golden gears spinning inside his chest. He’d probably sink.
A nip of pain stung his palm. He jerked his hand away from the barbed railing. The sensation brought back a memory of sitting at the doctor’s office while a nurse sewed his skin back together. Stitches, he thought. They were called stitches. But he couldn’t remember how his skin had gotten cut in the first place. It was so aggravating—fractions of time surrounded in nothingness.
Bits of junk jutted up from the barren fields on the other side of the bridge. The junk sprouted from the ground like…trees. Trees made of metal. The closer he got, the more the sprouts of junk looked like a forest, tangled and ragged. He neared the forest’s edge, where the metal trees cast wicked shadows below.
Jed turned around. He could either stay out in the open field under the dreadnoughts or enter this.
An explosion cracked behind him, and orange dots peppered the skyline.
“I’ll take my chances.” He stepped over the forest line and entered the maze of shadows. Loose junk crunched under his feet. This wasn’t the compact floor of junk of the open plains, and it wasn’t a friendly place either. Every few steps, his gaze would snap to a shadow that looked more like a claw than the bent coatrack or crooked shower-curtain rod that it really was.
Forests were supposed to be bright, happy places with greens, and yellows, and browns. Weren’t they? This one was the color of menace and the shape of razors. Yet it beckoned him farther away from the plains and deeper inside its quiet obscurity. The forest felt like a wolf pretending to sleep, waiting for someone to step into its jaws.
Even so, Jed moved deeper into the belly of the beast.
After an hour, he came to a bookshelf wedged against a wooden cart. He crawled between them and reached in his backpack for a can of cherry pie filling. He pried the top open and scooped out a blob of red goop.
The first taste held memories of cinnamon and nutmeg, toasted butter and rolled oats. The second bite tasted cheap and sticky. Scoop by scoop, he finished the pie filling. He turned the empty can over in his hands, examining it. There were two rust spots on the bottom. Jed used the screwdriver to scratch a curved line under them. A smiley face.
“It’s just you and me,” he said to the can. “Against the world. Or whatever this place is.” The rusty eyes looked back at him.
“You need a name,” he said. “What about…” He thought for a moment, and then a girl’s name popped into his head. “What about: Sprocket?”
Jed nodded. It fit.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Sprocket,” he said to her with a sigh. “I don’t even know who I am.” An uncomfortable wet fog settled over him. Jed shivered and curled into a ball in the small wedge of space under the bookshelf. His eyes were too heavy to keep open anymore.
“Keep watch while I nap,” he said, setting Sprocket beside him, eyes facing out into the iron forest. Sleep trickled into Jed’s head. The dark fog melted into crisp green leaves and blue skies stuffed with fluffy clouds. He sat cross-legged under a bright lemon tree. A warm breeze blew over his arms and through his hair. Sunlight baked the soft grass under his feet.
“Warrrm…” a voice said beside him.
Jed looked down.
Sprocket was nestled in the plush grass, staring up at him. “Hi, Sprocket,” Jed said.
“Warrrm sunnn,” Sprocket said. The voice was shaky and metallic. It warbled as it spoke, as if it were new to the idea of speaking.
“It’s quite warm,” Jed agreed. “I like the sun.”
“Yesss. Warrrm sunnn. Niiice.”
Jed relaxed into the lemon tree.
A whirr sounded from Sprocket. “Somethinnng…not right,” she said.
Jed sat up straight in his dream. He scanned the horizon, then looked at Sprocket. “What is it? What do you see?”
Sprocket whirred again. Her metal body rattled with the anxious vibration. “Shadowww spyyy.”
Jed studied the meadow, and then he glanced up at the sun. A violet eye stared back at him from the center of the golden ball. The eye pulsed slightly as it watched him. Jed scrambled behind the lemon tree. How had he not seen that eye before? He felt ridiculous hiding behind the skinny tree; the violet eye knew exactly where he was.
“Watching you,” Sprocket said, a nervous rattle in her tone. “Hunting you.”
Jed slunk lower behind the lemon tree’s trunk. The slit of violet in the sun narrowed as if to say, You can’t hide from me.
The puffy clouds darkened, and the blue sky bled with gray.
“What’s happening?”
“Storm coming,” Sprocket said. “Darkness.”
Jed’s eyes snapped open, and the dream vanished. He was still underneath the bookshelf. He shivered in the cold fog, rubbed his eyes, and laughed to himself. “Well, Sprocket,” he said, turning to the can, “thanks for keeping watch while I—”
His voice cut out.
The can wasn’t facing the way he’d placed her before falling asleep. She was turned around, facing toward him, her end tilted upward, and her rust-spot eyes locked on his.
“That’s…” Jed hesitated. “Umm…”
He looked up as if the violet eye from his dream were still in the sky. He turned back to Sprocket. The can stared at him, rust-spot eyes and crooked smile unchanged.
He was sure he hadn’t faced the can that way before he fell asleep. And now, here she was…looking at him.
“Sprocket…?” he said, half wondering if the tin can would speak back. Jed sighed. This was ridiculous. She was just an empty can. Of course, she wasn’t going to speak back to—
A movement flickered in the corner of his eye—a shadow in the darkness. Jed’s heart squeezed and the exposed gears under his shirt purred.
He scanned the black around him.
Get up and keep moving, he told himself.
Jed picked up Sprocket and set her inside his backpack. The gaps in the tall metal pieces around him cast branch-like shadows along the ground as he began walking again. Behind him, something creaked. He spun around and squinted at the quiet shapes.
Nothing.
He held perfectly still.
Something was watching him. He could feel it. And the longer he stood there, the more eyes he felt. A blistering heat scorched inside him as unseen eyes opened, one by one, until a hundred of them were staring at him. The heat in his chest sweltered, fueling an overwhelming rush of vulnerability. His head whipped back and forth, staring at the quiet, unmoving ground.
Something is here.
It was as if he could smell the being as plainly as he could smell the oil in the air. He tried to swallow. His throat scrunched tight.
“Who—” he whispered, “who are you?”
Silence.
“Answer me!” he yelled.
Heat flared again inside him, burning the edges of his lungs. He hunched over, clutching his chest.
“What’s happening to me?” he said, half whisper, half yelp.
A patch of junk shifted a few paces away.
Jed lurched backward, his eyes fixed on the spot.
The junk was still once again.
Jed waited and watched.
Slowly, the junk moved again, as if something were buried underneath. Hiding.
He took another step back. His heel caught on a pipe and he fell. His head struck the ground, and pain crackled through his skull. His vision bounced unsteadily as he scrambled to his feet. Before he could gather his bearings, another patch—this one to his left—began to swell. A third spot wriggled to his right.
Jed ran in the only direction he could—deeper into the forest. He leaped over tangles of pipe and ducked under broken scaffolding. Faster and faster, he moved through the gnarled branches until he reached a clearing walled in by metal foliage and barricades. His breath wheezed and his chest burned with purpose. He collapsed as the fire in him burned hotter still; the eyes found him once again. He squeezed his own eyes shut, but he could still feel them all—the eyes…finding him…watching him…pulling closer.
“Leave me alone!” he yelled.
Jed forced his eyes open and lifted himself up. A flurry of shapes crawled over the ground.
He staggered left, then right.
No matter which direction he went, junk squirmed around him. Again, he tried to run, but something burst free in front of him. A circular saw spun through the junk. Jed shifted direction. The saw flew into the air and soared toward him. Jed fell sideways, and the blade crashed into a filing cabinet.
More junk bubbled up, blocking his path. He jumped over wires and landed on a stove. Orange light glowed from the burner coils. The heated rings pressed into Jed’s arm. He jerked away only to fly into a sewing machine running full throttle.
Everything was alive.
A rubber wheel dragged an axle. A washing machine drum crashed against the piles. A blender’s blades spun at his feet. Loose bolts shot at him like bullets.
The eyes…all of them…all around…all watching him.
“Get away from me!” he yelled. “Stop!”
Immediately, the sewing machine slowed. The stove coils dimmed. The saw blade quieted. The blender’s whine died. The rubber wheel stopped turning. The flying hunks of metal fell to the ground.
Jed didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. The world was silent once again. In the quiet, still, the eyes watched him and waited, expecting him to speak again.
The blender sat motionless at his feet. Jed crouched in front of it—finding the invisible eyes. He reached toward them, and the ember in his chest flared.
The blender’s steel blades rotated slowly.
He inched his hand closer.
The blades spun faster.
Another inch.
Faster.
The heat in him burned brighter until the blender was whining once again at full speed.
“Stop,” he said, dropping his hand.
The fire in his chest disappeared, and the blender fell silent.
He stared at his hand as if seeing it for the first time. The same question burned inside him: Who am I?
This time, something answered: The key.
Jed took Sprocket from his backpack, set her on the ground, then picked up the blender. He smashed away the glass until all that was left were blades and motor. He wrenched a spade from the iron forest next and used bootlaces to lash the base of the blender to the shovel’s wooden handle.
He assumed a defensive posture and tested the makeshift spear in his grip, spinning it in a circle and jabbing at the empty air.
“How about this?” he asked, glancing down at Sprocket.
Jed imagined the heat in his chest. He concentrated on the blender tip, willing it to spin.
“Go.”
Red warmth flared inside of him, but the blender didn’t move.
Instead, a tire jerked beneath his feet, sabotaging his battle-stance and pulling his legs out from under him. “Not you,” he said, kicking the tire. He focused on the blender-spear. “I meant you. Now, go.” More heat built inside him. This time, the heat felt…blue.
Again, the blender remained still, but the engine at his feet grumbled to life. It coughed up black puffs of smoke.
“Wow. Useless.”
He steadied himself, focusing intensely on the blender.
“Go!”
More blue heat burned within him, but this time, at last, the blades at the end of the spear whirred a few rotations.
“Faster.”
He reached for the smoldering fire inside him, trying to spark it into a flame again. But with each attempt, less heat coursed through him and fewer machines responded. He was empty. Depleted. Cold.
Jed studied the weapon in his hands. “At least the blender tip looks sort of dangerous, doesn’t it?” he asked Sprocket. He slumped down next to the can, considering her. “You’re going to need better eyes. Those rust spots aren’t going to do.”
He pulled a toy Ferris wheel from a heap of junk and unscrewed two bolts. They were different sizes—one dime-size, and the other, nickel-size. “Better than rust spots, I guess.” He punched holes through the rust spots and then finagled Sprocket’s new bolts into place.
“There,” he said with a nod. “Those look much better.”
His own eyes flickered again. The iron forest disappeared in a blink.
Shay
Ryan’s head wiggled back and forth as he studied the oily, smashed ground.
He looked up at Shay. “Which way now?” he asked.
Shay tapped her chin like a detective. She liked detectives. Lyle once gave her a book that was all about them. After reading the book, she found a big magnifying glass without even one crack in it. But she still needed a special hat. The kind that looked like two hats—one pointing front, and one pointing back. And she needed a scoopy, curly pipe to hang in the corner of her mouth. An extra-big pipe.
Ryan’s face grew more wrinkles the longer he stared at Shay. She didn’t like these wrinkles. They weren’t the happy kind that peeked out from his cheeks when he smiled. They were ugly, squiggly ones that made his forehead look like a crumpled-up sock.
Shay didn’t know where Jed was. Not at all. But she didn’t like the wrinkles, so she decided to say something to make them go away.
“Hmm…” she said, tapping her chin extra confidently. “Looks like we’re getting closer.”
“Really?” His ugly wrinkles disappeared, and a couple not-ugly wrinkles smiled from his mouth. “How can you tell?” His head bobbled again as he stared at the ground.
“Well…Broken Mouse’s scamperings scampered all about the Scritcherdom City. Like ’fraidy pitter-pats. Some close—like the shuffles of a sneaky mouse. Some not very close at all—like the scurryings of a lost mouse. Some far, far apart—like the runnings-away of a too-scared mouse. See?”
New wrinkles appeared. Study wrinkles. Not so ugly…but not very pretty either.
That’s fine. Study wrinkles are okay.
“Oh…” Ryan studied the ground more, looking for scamperings. “You think he’s scared?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But he knows Scritcherdom City better than all the other mice. It was his home once. Home sweet home.”
Ryan made a wincey look with ugly wrinkles that Shay hadn’t ever seen before.
Then his face hardened into determination. “Which direction should we head?” he asked.
Shay felt torn. On the one paw, she didn’t like scowly, worried, ’fraidy wrinkles. Determined Mouse seemed like better company than ’Fraidy Mouse. But, on the other paw…she didn’t like wasting time scampering about senselessly. She had no idea where Jed was, and if she kept pretending she did, Ryan would turn back into ’Fraidy Mouse and eventually become Frustrated Mouse. Shay had never met a frustrated mouse she’d liked—especially ones frustrated with her.
“The trail’s gone cold,” she said in her best detective squeak.
“Huh? But you just said—”
“But I have an idea. We need to go back to the boat.”
“Why?”
“Because boats are faster than Broken Mice, aren’t they? We can find him from the sky!”
Ryan nodded. “That sounds like a good plan. We won’t be spotted since it’s already a dreadnought raft, but those skies”—he gazed nervously at the warring ships in the distance—“they’re not safe at all.”
“Okay, then, shipmate,” she said with a nod. She tried to remember some other boat words, and—with hands on her hips—said to Ryan in her most confident squeak, “Swab the starboard and weigh anchor to the helm sails. We hornswaggling junk-lubbers have got a Broken Mouse to ahoy!”
Jed
Why are they looking for me? Jed wondered, snapping back to himself. They didn’t seem like thieves, but then again, Jed didn’t know anything about anyone. Shay and Ryan could be thieves, or the whispering voice could be a liar.
“I guess you’re the only one I can trust,” he said to Sprocket.
Unsatisfied with his companion’s half-finished look, Jed pulled two metal hoses from a toppled-over washing machine. He punched four holes in Sprocket’s midsection—two on either side of the bottom half, and two on either side of the top half. Then he pushed one of the metal hoses clear through the top set of holes and the second hose through the bottom set. When he was done, Sprocket looked a bit like a four-legged spider.
“There. In case you want to crawl around a bit,” Jed said with a smirk.
He placed the tin can on a fallen telephone booth and then surveyed the junk. “What are we doing out here?” he sighed.
Knowing he had no choice, Jed fastened Sprocket to his backpack and then stepped deeper into the iron forest. The farther he walked, the colder he felt. The dark dome of fog overhead made the world forever night. No matter how much time passed, the darkness remained.
“I can’t tell if it’s actually cold here, or if it’s just me,” he said to Sprocket. “It’s like the cold is coming straight from my bones.” He touched his arm and his skin felt chilled. “What’s wrong with me, Sprocket?” He glanced back at her, tied atop his backpack, her bolt eyes staring back at him, and he wavered. “I think I need to lie down.”