EMFH Parts 5-9
Okay, it's been forever. This book (it's officially a book now) is coming along rather well, I think. And, unlike with my last one, I'm not getting distracted by a billion other ideas that I want to expand on. I see this thread pretty clearly now, and I'm following it through without much trouble (usually I get excited about something and try to move too fast, but this one is a steady write for me). So, because I haven't posted in a month, here's the next part of the story for you all. Hope you enjoy.
5
The sun began to push up into the sky, cooking it from the light pink of dawn to a near blood red, and Doc pulled the collar of his ratted shirt up. He elbowed Mutt, who dragged his eyes open. Mutt cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes once, then twice, and then pulled his own collar up. Gaps blinked his eyes slowly, and looked at the red blanket that he had always known as sky. He lightly nudged his sister, and she opened her eyes, then closed them again, and lay down her head. Gaps looked at Doc, and shook his head, and nudged his sister again. Doc laughed to himself, as Scraps pulled her head from Gaps’ lap.
“Use this, when we walk, but stay in the shadows as much as possible. It’ll help avoid the Sun Sickness, at least a little,” Doc pulled a wrinkled tube-like object from behind him and passed it to Gaps, who looked at it curiously. Mutt reached into a brown knap-sack that was behind him and pulled out a similar object, only his was a dirty brown, instead of weathered and beaten black, like Doc’s.
“You use it like this, and it’ll block the sun,” Mutt said, snapping a strap open and pushing along the center pole of the object. The brown material folded out and Mutt held it over his head, and his face was immediately darkened in shade. “It’s called an umbrella!” Mutt sang cheerfully. Scraps smiled and turned to her brother, who flipped the snap open and pushed the fabric away from him. When it was fully extended, he held it up and his sister smiled in the new shade from the red sky.
“We’ll have to share until we find a few more, if we find a few more, but it’ll be better than trying to dodge the sun all day,” Doc said, rising to his feet.
He pulled from his long coat a pair of gloves, and although they covered his fingers and the backs of his hands, the palms had small holes in it, and the bands near the wrists were tattered and shredded. He pulled from his own pack a tattered ball cap, and secured that to his head. Doc reached back into his pack and pulled another tattered cloth from inside of it, and draped the cloth around his neck. He tucked it under the color, and folded the end into the front of his shirt. The only skin that was visible now was his face, and that was in the shade from his hat.
“I won’t need an umbrella, so do the three of you think you can manage to share the umbrellas with no problems?”
Mutt nodded yes, but Gaps simply pulled his sister in closer to him, and looked at the circle of shade around the two of them. He tipped his face slightly, and Doc took that as a yes. Without another word, Doc turned and headed back up the alley. He listened to the footsteps of the three behind him, but turned his eyes to every possible hiding spot along the street. He saw the steps leading down to the tunnels on the far side of the street, and guessed the distance to be nearly 100 yards in the sun. Hopefully, without anyone jumping out at them, hoping to rob them of whatever morsels they may have, they’d make the quick trip easily. Just the same, Doc veered along the building to avoid a parked car with all its windows shattered out. The Sun Sickness made people do crazy things, but survival and desire to live made them even crazier. He wanted to take no chances.
When he saw the street was clear, and he felt secure that the car wasn’t hiding any villainous survivors, he marched out into the red sunlight. The warmth struck him immediately, and he felt as though he had stepped from the shady cover of an autumn day into the sweltering heat of the desert in summer. The sweat popped on his forehead and began to drip. He turned to see that Mutt was immediately behind him, but Gaps and Scraps remained glued to the building.
“Keep the umbrella between you and the sun, make sure your skin is in the dark of the shade, and you’ll be alright,” Doc said. Mutt stopped and looked back at the girl and her brother, but said nothing. He did his best to look encouraging, but refused to smile or make the trip seem simple and easy. He knew well enough that it wasn’t. Minutes in the sun could turn into months of pain and anguish, Doc had told him.
“How far are we going?” Gaps asked.
“Just to the tunnel, the entrance is there,” Doc pointed to the stairs leading downward through the pavement. “Once inside the tunnel, we’ll be safe from the sun.” Gaps looked from where they stood to the hole in the pavement, and then he looked at his sister. He leaned down and whispered into her ear, and she clutched his shirt tighter, squeezing herself into him. The two then stepped away from the building, and out into the red sun. They quickened their pace, and as they did, Doc and Mutt continued on to the other side of the street. Doc continued to look around them, but made sure to keep his face turned down, and away from the morning sun. In the distance, he saw a sickened soul wandering in the street. The skin hung limp, and the eye sockets were dark craters, sunken away from the face. Doc could see the water vapors of heat rising from its skin, and he knew that if they stayed out in the sun for very much longer, they’d all end up like it. Luckily, it was far enough away from them that it was no threat. He also counted himself lucky that the girl hadn’t looked up to see it, and get frightened herself.
The steps were blackened with dirt and litter, but they weren’t slick or dangerous. Doc scampered down them quickly, and Mutt dropped down just as quickly. Gaps and Scraps navigated the stairs much slower, but still hurried down into the darkness. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Mutt showed Gaps how to fold the umbrella back into its small, tube form, and Gaps handed it over to Doc.
Gaps looked around at his new surroundings and recognized it. The tunnels were dangerous places at night, making even those with the best vision blind in the darkness, and it wasn’t much better during the day. He had felt that dangerous things happened in the tunnels, and he wasn’t too far off. A sinking feeling hit him and he turned to Doc with worry in his eyes.
“This tunnel once had trains that took people from one side of the city to another, and everywhere in between. They called them ‘subways’ in the old world,” Mutt said to Gaps, pointing to a faded map with red, blue and yellow lines on it. The lines seemed to flow up and down and left to right, but none of them circled around.
“This feels dangerous,” Gaps said, and Doc smiled. The boy was good with his instinct, and felt that was another edge for their small traveling group. He has had many students over the years, and although he could teach them anything in a book, he could not teach instinct.
“During the night, only the brave or the stupid will come down here. It is a place of unknown. During the day, near the stairs it is a place of refuge from the sun, and a safe place of rest. But, we are not here to rest,” Doc said his last statement louder, and into the dark tunnels the expanded away from them.
“Then what are you here for?” a voice called back, and Scraps leapt into her brother’s arms.
“Travel. We’re moving upward.” Doc called back. Slowly, from one of the blackened recesses, a figure moved into the shadowed landing area. Its clothes were ragged, torn and dirty, and the creature wearing them was thin, and gangly.
“Toll?”
“Two rats, and half a dog.” Doc reached into his pack and produced the dead bodies of two rats, and a newspaper wrapped object that Gaps immediately smelled as the meal they were eating the night before. The skinny figure warbled closer to them, and held out a small hand. Doc gently handed over the rats by their tales, and the skinny figure tucked them into its shirt. It eyed the rest of the group, then took the dog and sniffed it.
“Half a dog because you ate the other half, or because you had to trim it?”
“Ate it last night” Doc answered, and placed a hand on his stomach to pat it and show that it was full. The skinny figure seemed satisfied with his answer, and moved back away.
“You said upward?” the figure paused in its retreat. Doc nodded in response. “Stay to the middle of the bars, and upward is that way. There is another station close by, and a third after a long walk. Your toll will get you as far as the fourth station, but I can’t tell how far a walk that would be, I’ve never been to the fourth station.” The figure disappeared back into a dark shadow as quickly as it appeared, and from the dark hole, its voice said one last thing, “The password is Red.”
Doc moved to the edge of the platform and dropped down. He turned and held out his hands as Mutt stepped off the edge, and Doc lowered him to the ground. Gaps pushed Scraps forward, and she allowed Doc to lower her down in the same manner. Gaps jumped down himself, landing awkwardly on the metal rail and crossties below him, but kept on his feet. He looked at Doc, who motioned him toward the middle of the tracks. Together the four began to walk in the direction the skinny figure had pointed. Slowly, the light toned down behind them, and soon they found themselves in complete darkness. Scraps had taken Gaps’ hand, and Gaps even felt himself reach out and take Doc’s hand. It was accepted easily enough, but once Doc held it, Gaps felt foolish for needing to reach out to this stranger. He wanted to pull his hand back, but he felt that would be an even bigger mistake.
Mutt finally broke the silence.
“Is the fourth station far enough up for us, or will we need to travel much farther?”
“We’ll have to ask if we can get our location at the third station, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Without knowing how far the fourth station is, it may be easier to leave at the third,” Doc answered. “How are your eyes adjusting, Gaps?”
“It’s hard to see anything. Why?”
“Because Mutt is about to hunt, and if your eyes had adjusted, you could hunt with him, and increase our wealth. But, soon enough you’ll see well enough.”
As Doc finished speaking, Gaps knew that Mutt had left the group by a few feet. He wasn’t sure if Mutt was leaving when he broke the silence, or had just left, but he was quick, and the slight noise he made came from several feet away in the tunnel. Scraps squeezed his hand harder, and Gaps gave her a reassuring squeeze of his own. A second noise was heard to the side of the tunnel, and it resembled a squeak that had been cut off in mid-squeak. A rat had just been squeezed to death, and it was quickly followed by another. Mutt was a very good hunter, and for the first time since meeting the duo, Gaps was impressed with the boy.
“Only two on this side, the nest has been trampled,” Mutt whispered when he rejoined the group. Gaps wanted to hunt as well, but his eyes still remained numb to his surroundings, and he could only judge by sound. He also knew he’d have to remain with his sister while he was unable to see.
“Two will work fine for now. Hopefully there will be more after the next station. Can you see it coming up, Gaps?” Doc gave his hand a soft squeeze, and Gaps instinctively squeezed back.
“No, not yet. At least, I don’t think I do, but I see purple spots, like shadows moving,” he answered.
“That’s good, those spots are your eyes adjusting…when they settle, try to focus them.”
The spots danced around a bit more, and Gaps stopped walking. He heard that the other three stopped with him. The slight purple he saw now took a more circular shape, and a steadier one, and Gaps realized he was looking down the tunnel, and the shade he saw ahead of him was in fact a dull light. It was the next station.
“I can see it now!” Gaps nearly shouted, and Doc and Mutt shushed him immediately. He clapped his hand over his mouth. After stifling a short laugh, he whispered once again, “I can see it now.”
“That’s very good. Now, when we reach the station, I want you and Scraps to stay between the rails. Don’t look up the stairs, your eyes will hurt from the light, and it’ll take you a long time to adjust back and forth between the light and the dark. It’s not dangerous, but it is very bothersome, at least until you’ve used the tunnels a few more times.”
“I always thought the tunnels were dangerous, but I don’t feel so scared now.” Scraps peeped out. Her voice was soft and gentle.
“Right now you are safe, and watched, but when the red sky turns black, no one stays to help and anything can happen in the tunnel,” a strange voice responded to her. This voice was different from the skinny figure’s voice, and Scraps felt it sounded more like a female. The sudden noise from the side of the tunnel still made her jump with a tingle of fear.
“Make no mistake, the tunnel is still dangerous, to those who come here without welcome, to those who will not pay their toll,” a deeper voice said, from the far side of the tunnel, and a small clank echoed through the darkness. A larger clang followed, this one from much closer, and a last one seemed to bang from directly in front of them. Gaps eyes saw the shadow move, and knew that it held something in its hand, but his eyes were still like a newborn’s, and he did not understand what he was seeing.
“We have paid our toll, and trust the password is good,” Doc said, standing firm. Again, a soft clank of metal on metal as the dark figure now stood a few feet in front of them. Gaps could finally see that the figure was a man, a larger man, well fed, but not fat, and in his hand, he held a long, steel pipe. He tapped the end of it against the rail at their feet.
“What would that password be?” the man asked, and the female voice Scraps had heard first soon found a body to match it, as the second figure slithered up behind the man with the pipe.
“Red,” Doc answered, still with a steady tone in his voice. Gaps turned his head to look for Mutt, and saw that Mutt was standing obediently upright next to Doc, and so Gaps straightened up himself. As his shoulders pulled back and his back straightened, Gaps felt a certain surge of confidence enter his body.
“That is a good password. I hope your journey is safe.” The man clanged his pipe against the rail again, and stepped to the side, off the rail. The woman behind him also retreated. The four began to walk again, but as they moved closer to the light ahead, Gaps realized he was no longer holding Doc’s hand…and he wasn’t holding Scraps’ hand, either. He turned to look for her, but did not see her right next to him. He spun to look behind him, but all he saw was darkness. The shadowy shapes he had just seen seemed to have vanished, even though he knew going back ten feet or so would reveal them to him once again.
“Scraps, where are you?”
“I’m here,” her voice answered, from that ten feet or so behind him, “I’m talking to the blind man.”
Doc took Gaps hand, and they retraced their steps to the post.
“How did you know I was blind?” the man asked, his voice steady and deep.
“The banging. I thought you couldn’t see us because it’s dark…but Mutt and Gaps are starting to see some things in the dark, but you still banged the stick on the metal. That’s how you know where it is, right?” Scraps said, her voice seemed cheery in the dark, and unafraid of anything.
“You are very wise, little one. Many have passed this way, and very few have ever noticed that…obstacle.”
“I don’t think it’s an obstacle, you’re probably very good down here, and you probably have an advantage over most anybody else who comes down here. You could probably stay here even at night and not know the difference, can’t you?” she asked, almost sounding glad to know the stranger with the cane.
“Oh no, I would never stay down here at night. Even with my advantage, as you called it, I could not stay down here. I may be able to move in the dark easier than those with sight, but I cannot fight when I cannot see.” But don’t you worry about me, little one. Your group was heading somewhere, and you have paid a fine and decent toll. It’s best you get your group moving. But, Scraps, should you and your group come back this way, you have a Gold pass from me.” The blind man stuck out his hand, and Doc saw that the skin was still in tact, there were no abrasions or blisters on it. Scraps looked to her brother, and he said, “They call it ‘shaking hands’ and it’s what they used to do when meeting new people on peaceful terms.” He turned and looked at Doc, and although he couldn’t see it, he knew that Doc was smiling back. “It’s still weird, though,” Gaps added.
Scraps stuck out her hand, holding it a few inches from the blind man’s hand, and the woman who was standing next to the blind man reached over, pushing the two hands together. The blind man gave it two quick shakes, and then let the hand go, and Scraps giggled.
“My name was Max, but they call me Bat now. I hope you folks have a good journey, where ever you are headed.”
“Thank you very much, Max. Should we come this way again, we will bring a good toll for you, and a decent bonus for your kindness,” Doc said, and he reached down to take Scraps’ hand. He led her away, and in the dark, she waved behind them. The woman waved back.
6
They passed the next station with little fuss, and Gaps remembered to not look up the stairs at the light, but even with his head turned away, he could still see how bright everything else seemed. The rails they walked along were lit up brightly, and he could count every pebble under their feet. He noticed the Mutt kept walking with his head held up, and again felt impressed with the younger boy’s skill. Although it was not intimidation, it was a note he made sure to remember, that the boy was more than a tag along to the older man.
They headed back into the dark, continuing on their way, and as the light faded away, Gaps straightened his neck, holding his chin up once more. In the dark, although it felt slightly less dark than it had been when they started, he saw something small move. Before he could identify it, Mutt had dodged in front of them, over the rail, and tackled to the ground where the something had been. The sudden movement had Scraps squirming, and the muffled voices seemed to carry loudly. When Mutt returned, he held a thin animal by its tail. At first, Gaps thought it was a large rat, but as Mutt walked in front of him, he saw that it was a cat. Mutt stuffed the cat into his pack, and the three continued on.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Doc asked, his voice low and hushed.
“I think I did, for a second, but he was quicker,” Gaps answered.
“You’ll get quicker, too, but it’s good that you saw it. You can’t catch what you can’t see. You’ve taken a bigger step into the world.”
“If the last part is long enough, I’ll show you how to catch them,” Mutt said, offering his advice in a secretive manner.
As they walked, Gaps understood why they needed to whisper. In the darkness, everything seemed still, and although they were whispering and making as little noise as possible, each step was amplified in the dark. And as his eyes began to focus in the dark, he could also hear the movement of the rats and animals in the corners of the tunnel. On top of them, he also realized that every twenty or thirty feet or so, they were passing a sleeping body. This tunnel was more like a hotel than a passageway, and their noise only disturbed those who had no where else to sleep.
In the distance, Gaps saw the light, and pointed it out to Doc. Unexpectedly, Scraps whispered that she saw it, too. As a reward to her, Gaps put his arm around her and gave her a half hug. In the tunnel, they saw the next guard long before he said anything to them.
“We request permission to determine our location at this station, if it pleases you.” Doc said, and Gaps wrinkled his eyebrow at the funny speech.
“That depends on your password, dude,” the guard responded. His voice sounded young, and Doc wrinkled his own brow.
“Are you a new guard at this station?” Doc asked.
“Password first, then we can chat if you want, old man.” The voice was brash, and Doc knew that this was not the normal attitude of a tunnel post. His instinct told him to get ready for trouble, but he wasn’t sure what kind of trouble to expect. Since they remained in the dark still, they had the advantage of a retreat, but to run from the unknown would not get them closer to shelter for the night.
“The password is Red.”
“Works for me, bud. Where you going, and I’ll tell you your location?” Doc knew that this was a set up question. In the new world, a person’s destination didn’t matter much to anyone. One place was just as destroyed, diseased, and worthless as the next, so why go anywhere, unless you knew of something better.
“I don’t know what it’s called. Perhaps the boy could go up and look around for a second?”
“With a red, you can go up one more station, why waist it on a look around?” Doc knew this was a bad situation, and that the new guard would want to charge them for leaving and coming back down. It reminded him of when someone stepped out of line for the swing as a kid, they had to go back to the end of the line, not get back in right where they were.
“The three of us will wait here, if he can go alone, for less than one minute?” Doc bargained, “We can offer one rat, freshly caught.”
“One rat for a peek, works for me, dude.” The guard sauntered over and snatched the rat from Mutt’s hand. As soon as the dead animal was gone from his grip, Doc lifted Mutt onto the platform, and he scurried up the steps. He pulled his umbrella from his pack and unfolded it before he reached the top, and the other three waited in silence while he was gone. The guard looked the rat over, and squeezed its side for plumpness. Mutt came hustling down, and collapsed the umbrella as he raced over to the platform.
“We’re a lot closer, but it’s still half a day walk in sunlight,” he reported.
“But are we next to it, or diagonal?” Doc asked, and Matt glanced upwards in thought.
“Diagonal…we have to keep moving upward, it’s too far from here.” Doc nodded, and held his arms up to bring Mutt back down to the tracks. As the four of them renewed their journey, Gaps said over his shoulder, “Take it easy, dude.”
“Whatever,” the guard answered.
Once the dark had surrounded them completely, Gaps began to look around for animals. He saw Mutt charge off and come back triumphant a few times, but he struggled to find the glowing eyes in the dark. His eyes had begun to adjust to the light of the station far quicker than he anticipated, and now found himself struggling to see as well as he did before. Slowly, the shadows took shapes, and he would catch a glimpse of an animal or two before Mutt could tackle them and bring them in. Finally, as Mutt was diving after one more rat, Gaps saw a second set of eyes on his side of the tracks. Without hesitating, he charged forward, and as the rat turned its head to run, he leapt for the creature. He threw his arms out in front of him, and watched in amazement as the creature dodged away from his hands, and the air gushed out of his lungs as his body collapsed to the floor. The creature scampered away quickly, not bothering to look back.
“That was good, real good. You are quick,” Mutt said, coming over to help Gaps up. Gaps brushed off the help and stood up, upset with himself.
“I didn’t get it, so I must not be that quick.”
“But I didn’t tell you the trick yet, and you still almost got him. That’s faster than I’ve ever been,” Mutt said, not bothered by Gaps avoiding his help.
“There’s a trick to it?”
“Yes,” Mutt said, getting a little excited. “When you leap, you have to leap to where the creature is going to run, and keep your body so that it’ll land where the creature already is, so that if it runs straight forward, as most of them do, they charge right into your hands, and if they turn back to avoid your hands, you catch them underneath you. It may get messy if they are really weak and you land on one, but the meat’s still good, either way.”
“And what if it runs to the side?”
“Then move your hand to the side. It’ll happen from time to time, but not very often. I’ve only missed one today.”
Gaps found that he was now on the outside of the group, with Mutt next to him, and then Doc, and Scraps on the outside of the other side. He felt nervous for a second. He had never had anyone between he and his sister for as long as he could remember, and now he was walking down a tunnel with two people between them. It unsettled his stomach a bit, but before he could fix the problem, Mutt raced away. He watched Mutt’s body fly through the air, and land just behind a scurrying rat, the same rat he just tried to catch, and come up with the animal. He had snapped its neck as soon as he got it.
“Trust me, you’ll be snagging these guys within no time. And if we take the tunnels again, I’ll show you how to catch the cats.”
“You don’t do the same thing?” Gaps asked, and Mutt chuckled a little.
“It’s close, but cats are almost guaranteed to run to the side, so you land next to them, not behind them.” Mutt tucked the rat into his pack, and the four continued on through the dark.
The distance between the third station and the fourth was a lot longer than the distance for the first three stations combined, but the journey was quicker than they had expected, with Mutt and Gaps diving off the sides of the trail every now and again. Scraps had begun a hushed conversation with Doc, but mostly they spoke about the things she saw in the tunnel. Her eyes had adjusted as well, but she lacked the speed to help Mutt and Gaps catch anything she saw. Scraps was the one who noticed that they passed a fewer amount of sleeping bodies, but the occasional body was seen lying to the sides. The dark no longer bothered her, but Doc reminded her that any one of the sleeping bodies could be awoken, and any one of those could be in a foul and dangerous mood if they did. So, she hushed her voice, and they continued on toward the fourth station. She also pointed out that they were approaching the light.
Gaps stopped diving for rats, despite feeling exhilaration at hunting once again, and Mutt also stopped his hunt, a little tired from the leaping and scrambling. The group gathered together, and they approached their last guard.
“This is where we get out,” Doc informed the guard, and instead of exchanging pleasantries, the figure merely pointed toward the stairs. Doc helped Mutt up onto the platform, and then lifted Scraps. Gaps pulled himself up, and Doc followed suit, huffing and groaning as he lifted himself up. His knees pops when he stood and he struggled to stand up straight. With a shake of his head, he muttered that he ‘didn’t have too many of those left’, but when Mutt asked him what he said, he replied, “Nothing.”
After gathering their packs and taking out the umbrellas, Doc covered his skin once again, letting Mutt take the lead out of the subway. Mutt told him where the sun was, and as Doc came up the stairs, he lowered his chin to keep the sun off his face. Luckily, the subway stairs were close enough to a building that they soon moved from the searing heat into the cool shade, and Doc could finally look around. A little over ten city blocks away, he saw their target. The building stood amazingly tall, but did not tower above many of the buildings around it. The difference between that building and the others around it was the top. Most of the taller buildings had been toppled, or destroyed in violence. The building they were trying to reach was still in tact, and the top dozen floors still had windows in them. The lower floors were just as abused as any other building, but there was refuge in the top, and the small group hoped to find shelter inside those windows.
7
When the small group met the base of the building, they saw that most of the bottom half of the building had been broken and abused similar to the others. The windows and doors were ripped away, smashed, and left wide open, but not because of the explosions of bombs, but because of riots and rampaging people, so furious at the world they felt no other option than to hurl a chair, plant, or even themselves, through the glass. The lobby of the building was a complete wreck, and what little was left inside was smashed into unidentifiable pieces of garbage. Standing on the sidewalk outside the front door, the four survivors stared up at the top third of the building, the portion that was encased completely in glass, the portion that represented safety. Although she never said anything, Scraps felt uneasy staring up at the behemoth of concrete.
“How far up do you think it is?” Mutt asked, his chin raised up, and his neck a smooth straight line down into his shirt.
“I can’t be certain, but I’d guess it’s nearly 40 stories to the first floor with windows, and perhaps another fifteen or so to the top,” Doc answered, tearing his eyes away from the skyscraper to look at his students. “We should be able to make it up before sundown, and perhaps you’ll get to see an actual sunset, without fear of the Sun Sickness.”
The three children looked first to Doc, and then to the inside of the lobby. They began to walk forward, but Scraps felt her feet tighten, and become sluggish. Gaps gave her hand a slight tug, and that seemed to free her from her post.
The debris in the lobby was no obstacle for them, and they found the elevator shaft to be wide open. The cables had been snapped, and the car itself seemed to have been removed, although how was anybody’s guess. Doc leaned his head inside the square opening and looked upward. Without sunlight, he could not see very far upward, the shaft encased in darkness. He straightened up and looked around, spotting the staircase and pointing it out to the young ones. Mutt marched forward and tore open the door. The concrete stairs lay directly ahead of him, with bright yellow handrails, and little caution strips at the edge of each step. He smiled back at the others, and they followed him into the stairwell.
“Now, I don’t want to frighten you, but I doubt we’ll be the only ones who have thought of coming here. In fact I’m pretty sure we’re not, otherwise, the rest of the windows would be smashed out already. The people we find may be a bit unruly and defensive of their dwelling, as they should be. We may try to barter with them, but if they are aggressive or hostile, we shall keep moving on and hope to find another shelter. Hopefully, we’ll discover their nature before anything becomes violent. Do not do anything to provoke anyone we come across, is that clear?” Doc said, switching his gaze from one child to the next as he spoke. He stared at them in a clear and hard manner, hoping to drive home the point he was making. Mutt nodded instantly, and Scraps looked worried, but Gaps simply reached behind him and patted his slingshot. Doc stared at him longer than the others, and finally Gaps nodded in acceptance of Doc’s wishes.
They began to climb the stairs, Mutt counting off each floor as they passed another door. They had stopped at every ten floors to open the door and see what was left. The first stop opened on a nearly identical replica of the lobby, only the scenery out the window had changed, from a street level view of the next building over to a slightly raised level view. But what they noted mostly was the lack of glass.
After the second stop, twenty floors up, Mutt and Gaps walked to the edge of the building to peer down at their greater height. Scraps remained a few feet behind, with Doc, noting that she felt uncomfortable with the feeling in her stomach from the view. Doc noted that she must be afraid of heights, a common phobia among most people who had never climbed higher than a two story house in their life. The boys snickered at the mention of her being afraid, but quickly let the issue drop. Gaps would never try to hurt his sister’s feelings, and Mutt knew that mocking someone’s fear only gave them permission to mock his own fears. Doc had taught him that.
At the third stop, the boys snuck to the edge, but kept their feet farther back than before, and only peeked over the side. The wind whistled through the open area, and it felt stronger, as though it could push them over the edge if they weren’t careful. However, now being thirty stories up, they saw a slight change in the setting. The furniture was smashed, but in larger pieces, and more identifiable. The floor had less dirt on it, and a few of the windows had shards of glass still in it. Mutt saw a long, smooth sliver sticking out of one pane, and with careful fingers, pulled it loose. Scraps tilted her head as she watched him take the clear object and slip it into his pack.
“Glass is sharp, and can cut things, and that may come in handy,” Mutt said as he rejoined the group. Doc looked around at the other pains and considered taking a sliver for himself as well, but decided against it. Something told him it might prove to cause more harm than good if they tried to use it like a knife, but if the boy wanted it, the boy could have it.
They decided to stop after every other floor to check the windows at that point, noting that they must have been getting close. Their legs were tired, and Scraps made them stop on a landing twice already to catch her breath. Although the group agreed to the stops reluctantly, Doc was grateful for the chance to rest his knees as well.
As they opened the door on the thirty-sixth floor, Scraps began to smile broadly at their discovery. Three of the windows were completely in tact. The smooth panes were smudged and dirty, but solid and un-cracked, just the same. Gaps walked to within inches of the protective square and tapped his knuckles on it lightly. He smiled at the sound of his knocking. A breeze still ripped through the open areas of that floor, but they were close to a warm place to sleep. And they could tell by the color of the sky turning from light red to a darker maroon that if they hurried, they would get to see the sunset.
With renewed vigor, the foursome ran up two more flights, and Mutt threw the door open with Gaps on his heels. As they entered that floor, sweat dripping from their foreheads, but grins stretching their faces, they saw something they hadn’t expected. The floor was covered in completely clean carpeting. And most of the windows were solidly in place. The furniture had been taken apart, rather than smashed, and all the chairs and desks were missing their legs. Doc grabbed the boys by the arms to keep them close to him.
“Now I know we aren’t the only ones who have come here. It is okay to be glad we have reached a high enough level to stop climbing the stairs for the night, but we must be on our guard until we make sure that we are the only ones here,” Doc glanced around, slightly impressed with the condition of the floor and a bit wide-eyed with hope himself.
He released the boy’s shoulders, and Gaps immediately took out the slingshot. It was the first time Mutt had seen the weapon, and he felt an overwhelming sensation of wonder, first at the glassed in floor, and secondly at the deadly weapon in his new friend’s hand. Gaps reached into his tattered pockets and pulled out a handful of odd shaped stones and rocks. He loaded one craggy piece into the sling, and pinched the soft pouch between his thumb and forefinger, pulling the bands back slightly. He’d pull it back a few more inches before firing, but he didn’t intend to fire it unless he saw something worth hitting.
“We should look around first, before getting any ideas about setting up camp for the night, right?” he asked Doc, who nodded in approval. Mutt broke his gaze from the object in Gaps’ hand, and forced himself to look around for any other people. The two boys began to move together, checking behind the squatty desks sitting on the floor, instead of on their staunch legs. Scraps began to look around as well, but she stopped when looking out one of the windows on the west side of the building.
“The sun is going down!” she called out to the others, and trotted over to get a better look out the window. She ran directly up to the glass and placed her fingers on the pane, her eyes widened at looking directly toward the sun, without any of its fierce heat bearing down on her. Suddenly, a hand, smudged in dirt and grime, snaked out and grabbed her around the shoulders, just under her neck. Across her neck, a jagged piece of glass was pressed against her. She felt her skin get tingly, and her nerves jumped to life. She cried out in fear.
“That’s right, Missy, the sun is going down, and if you don’t shut that screaming up, it’ll be the last one you ever see,” the owner of the smudgy hand said, his words snaked into her ear, hot and disgusting. She winced against the jagged glance, and felt one small poke against her skin. The poke made her cry again, and she felt a bit of liquid squeeze out of her neck. She imagined he had cut her anyway, and soon she would die, but when her air was not interrupted, and she felt the liquid stop, she realized it was just a scratch. Still, her heart beat wildly, and she wanted to cry out.
The man holding Scraps was covered in filth, and his right hand, the one holding the glass to Scraps’ throat, was wrapped in brown rag around the palm. Mutt thought of his own piece of glass and realized he’d have to wrap his hand in the same way to ever use the glass he had stored in his pack, unless he wanted to cut his hand to shreds. The dark stains and patches on the man holding Scraps’ clothes told him the man must have already cut himself at least a dozen times.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Doc said, looking directly into the man’s eyes, and holding out his own hands to show he meant no harm. The man stood behind Scraps, his head was a foot higher than hers, even with his back hunched, and he stared at Doc, and then turned his attention to Gaps.
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t mind telling your friend to put down the sling,” the man responded, his eyes glared at Gaps, and Gaps returned the stare with fierceness. His fingers had drawn the pouch back as far as he could manage, and he raised the Y shaped object up to aim it directly at the man’s head.
“Put it down, son. It’ll only get her hurt,” Doc said, keeping his arms out, but turning his head toward Gaps.
“Tell him to let her go, and I’ll put down the sling,” Gaps said back, keeping his eyes locked and the sling pointed at the man holding his sister.
“I’ll tell you what, since you seem ready to shoot me with that, I’ll just slit her throat, and take my chances with the three of you, how’s that?” the man said, and pushed the glass tighter into Scraps’ throat. Scraps whimpered, and was sure she felt blood pouring out of her neck this time. The tears were unstoppable, as the fear of her dying swept over her body. For good measure, the man holding her used his other hand to yank back on her hair, stretching her neck, and showing the others that his blade of glass was digging into her skin.
“Alright! Alright!” Gaps yelled, and he loosed his pull on the pouch. The rock he had loaded it with dropped to the floor, and he tossed the sling onto the ground a few feet in front of him. The man holding his sister loosened his grip on her hair, and gave some slack to the glass digging into her neck, but still held it to her skin. With a soft nudge, he walked her over toward the sling, and used his heel to kick it farther away from Gaps.
“Now dearie, bend on over and pick up the nice sling for me, and I might take this glass away from your throat a bit,” the man instructed as he pushed down on Scraps’ shoulders. Slowly, Scraps put out her hand and took the sling from the floor, and held it up over her shoulder for the man to take it. Releasing his grip on her, but keeping the glass at her neck, the man snatched the slingshot and rolled it in his fingers, looking the weapon over.
“You’ve got the sling, now let her go,” Gaps barked out, the angry look still burning in his eyes.
“Not just yet, boy. We’ve got to see some friends of mine, first,” the dirty man said, tucking the slingshot into a back pocket. He stood up straighter, though, and with his newly freed hand, pointed toward a back corner of the floor they were on. Gaps kept his eyes locked with the dirty man’s, and Doc searched Scraps’ neck to see if she was cut deeply, but Mutt turned to look in the direction the man pointed, and his stomach leapt to his throat with fear. In the back corner four equally dirty and smudgy men stood up and began to walk their way. Mutt let out a defeated sigh, and the other two turned to see their new visitors as well. Doc dropped his hands to his sides, and Gaps bit his lip in anger. He felt a deep regret for agreeing to come along with the old man and the boy.
“What’ve you got there, Cricket?” one of the newcomers asked as they walked over. Each held a leg to a desk, patting it against their palms like a club, and eyeing the strangers Cricket had found.
“Oh, I’ve got us a ticket for food, for certain. I may have even gotten us a ticket for bed and bath, as well,” Cricket said, smiling. His teeth were rotted and yellow, and his breath was muggy and hot against the top of Scraps’ head. The tears kept flowing from her eyes, leaving stains along her cheeks, but she made no sound, for fear that he’d jab the glass against her again.
“Well, let’s see what else we have here,” another of the men said, and he snatched the pack off of Doc’s back. The three began to rummage through the pack, and while they all stared at each object taken from the pack, Mutt quickly dug into his own pack and slipped out the shard of glass. He tucked it under his shirt and into the waist of his pants. He hoped they wouldn’t make him sit down before he got a chance to move it again, or it might break, or worse yet, stab him, but he didn’t want them to get another weapon away from them. And that’s how he saw the shard now, not as a cutting tool, but as a weapon, possibly their only weapon. The three scavengers took what they had pulled out and wanted for themselves, and then tucked the dead rats and meat back into the pack.
“Your turn, kid,” another said, turning their attention to Mutt. He slipped the straps off his shoulders and held the bag out for them as they approached. With hungry greed, they took the bag, and tore into it, like they did with Doc’s. After counting the food Mutt had caught for them in the tunnel, they all smiled and patted themselves on the back for a job well done.
“Let’s take them up to the Boss, and get ourselves a meal,” Cricket said, pushing Scraps back to her brother violently. She nearly fell at his feet, but Gaps caught her. He shot a hateful look at Cricket, who only smiled and waggled the piece of glass he held. The other men began poking at Mutt and Doc, pushing them toward the stairwell once again.
“Up we go, boys, eleven doors, no stops. It’s time for you to meet the Boss.”
8
At the landing for the eleventh door, a man stood silently, wearing what was left of a three piece suit. His tie had been torn and shredded, and the cuffs of his sleeves were mangled and uneven. His pants had holes in the knees, and they hung just above his ankles, the hem being cut off completely. Doc assumed it was the suit of someone much taller than the person now wearing it, and it had been modified for the shorter user.
“Jeeves, we are here to see the Boss, and we’re bringing presents,” Cricket announced cheerily. Jeeves stood motionless at the door, and surveyed the group.
“I shall have to announce you,” Jeeves said, his voice dry and old, even though the body it came from appeared to be younger than Doc. Cricket rolled his eyes, and turned his attention back to the group on the stairs. Jeeves pulled the door open a hair’s length and disappeared inside without a sound.
“I sure do hope the Boss likes you,” Cricket said, pointing his piece of glass first at Gaps, and then at Mutt, “and I sure do hope the Boss takes mercy on you,” he said jabbing the end of the glass lightly into Doc’s chest, nearly pushing him back off the step he was on, “but I know the Boss is gonna like you, missy.” Cricket leaned his face down a few inches from Scraps’, and he licked his lips. The foul air coming from his mouth made her cringe, and she turned her face away from him. When she did, he grabbed her chin with his smudged hand and gave her cheek a quick lick with his tongue. “She tastes sweet like candy, boys!” Cricket laughed and the three others standing behind them all laughed with him.
The door opened behind Cricket, and Jeeves ushered them inside, his face still somber like stone, showing no emotion at all. Cricket walked brazenly out of the stairwell, his dirty feet nearly gliding along the carpeted floor. Doc looked around at the floor when they had entered and was amazed at how well preserved everything was. It was still a wreck, with desks turned this way and that, but it was organized, and placed all around were couches, and cushions, and at one end, like at the end of a grand hallway, was a large sofa, and upon the sofa sat a fat creature, with strands of hair that seemed to come more from the side and back of its head than the top, and the skin was spotted with liver spots. The skin itself seemed almost yellow, and its teeth were half missing. The shirt it wore hung open down the belly, and the belly it had was large, round, and oily. On either side of the fat creature were two women, both of whom were also plump, but not nearly as large as the man on the couch, and their hair was a rats nest of curls and kinks. Each held a silver dish in their hands, and Doc noted that they were old hubcaps that had been cleaned and shined. In the hubcaps were bones and tiny morsels of food. The bones were large, with cooked meat still on them. The fat creature smiled at Cricket as he strolled up toward the couch.
“It better be good, Cricket…the sun has dipped down and you are interrupting my breakfast,” the fat man said. His cheeks warbled when he spoke, and Mutt marveled at the sheer size of him. In his whole life, Mutt had never seen anyone that wasn’t bony and skinny near to starvation. The two women, with curves and flab, held his gaze as he looked them over with curiosity.
“Boss Nox, I have brought you something I think you will enjoy very, very much,” Cricket began with a smile, and he bowed, bringing his arm back to reveal the foursome. Boss Nox’s eyes moved from Cricket’s gesturing to the four strangers standing before him, and his mouth widened in a hideous smile.
“Well, what have we here? New recruits to my kingdom, huh?” Nox said, as he plucked one of the smaller bones from the hubcap closest to him, and he bit a hunk of the meat, tearing it from the bone, and swallowing it quickly. “I suppose you want extra rations for doing what you’re supposed to be doing, don’t you, Cricket?” Nox finished, losing the smile on his face as he turned his attention back to the grungy man with the blade of glass.
“Yes sir, food for my men and myself, and I’d also like to ask for bed and bath as well, for myself,” Cricket said, smiling his best smile.
“Food, bed and bath?” Nox questioned, raising a fat eyebrow, “What do you have that’s worth bed and bath?”
“I have this,” Cricket said, pulling out the slingshot and holding it toward the fat man on the couch. At the sight of it, the eyes of the women grew round, and Nox’s face brightened considerably. For half a second, he ceased to look like a disgusting fat man and almost appeared to be a jovial being.
“Now, that is quite a find, Cricket, quite a find indeed. But, I don’t think it’s worth bed and bath…so you may choose one or the other. And,” Nox turned his attention to another solemn looking man that Mutt, Doc, and the others had hardly noticed was even in the room, “extra rations for the guards, half plate.” The nearly invisible man simply nodded his head and retreated away. Doc noticed that he, too, wore tattered suit clothes, also cut at the sleeves and pant legs to better fit the person now wearing it. The three men standing behind the foursome clapped each other on the shoulders, and with a wave of his hand, Boss Nox dismissed them. Cricket raised his arm and sniffed his underarm, then repeated the motion with his other arm.
“I think I would like the bed, Boss Nox,” Cricket said when Nox turned his attention to him. Nox nodded, and gave another wave, this time with the bone in his hand. A piece of meat that was dangling from the bone flung through the air, and the fat woman closest to where it landed quickly scooped the meat up and gobbled it into her mouth. Nox began to laugh heartily at her as she licked her fingers clean.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic, Violet, I fed you a whole plate’s ration yesterday,” Nox giggled, then turned his attention back to the group standing in front of him. “I understand that you have brought food with you, and I thank you for your contribution to my kingdom.” He spoke directly to Scraps, eyeing her body, studying it.
“We have brought food in hopes of making a barter for-“ Doc began to say.
“No one has given you permission to speak, beast, shut your mouth, before you waste my air!” Nox bellowed, his belly shaking with his anger. Doc immediately closed his mouth, and turned his head down, but kept his eyes on Nox. Boss Nox returned his eyes to Scraps, and he smiled politely at her.
“I have no use for the old one, but you may make a case for the boys, and I might listen,” he resumed, taking another bite from the bone in his hand. Scraps looked first at Gaps, and then to Doc, who nodded to her to say something.
“What do you mean make a case?” she asked, her voice tiny and scared.
“Tell me what they are good for, and I might keep them, is what I mean,” Nox answered, sucking on the bone that was now mostly bare.
“They are good for a lot of things, and so is Doc, he’s smart,” Scraps said, stepping forward from the group. Boss Nox dropped the bone at the other fat girl’s feet, and she snagged the object and immediately suctioned her lips to it. Violet looked on with envy.
“I already have one educated old man, why on Earth would I need two?” Boss Nox asked, his eyebrows rose along his bald forehead.
“Because Doc was around in the world before EMFH, and can tell you great stories about it,” she said, pleading with the only information she had about Doc.
“JEEVES!” Boss Nox suddenly bellowed, his large belly rippling with the yell. Scraps jolted back to the group quickly, and Gaps put his arm around her, pulling her to him. Jeeves quickly moved from the doorway by the stairs to the side of the couch. “Fetch me the Captain,” Boss said in a quieter tone. Jeeves nodded, and quickly whisked away again. “We’ll just see what ‘Doc’ knows about EMFH, when the Captain gets here. In the mean time, make your case for the boys.”
9
Scraps did her best, pleading for her brother, explaining that he was a good hunter, having gotten food for the two of them as long as she could remember. She stated that Mutt was also very fast, and could read, and would be a quick learner for anything that needed to be learned. The fat man on the couch simply raised an eyebrow when looking over the young boys, and there still seemed to be no interest in them on his face. Still, Scraps talked, hoping for a positive sign from Boss Nox. Her hopes began to dwindle when Nox stopped looking at the boys altogether, and studied a dirtied fingernail that seemed yellow and dull. His oily skin oozed sweat, and he wiped a hand under his nose, and then wiped that hand on his pants. She felt disgusted by him, but fought back an urge to shudder.
“Your arguments are very well spirited, my young lady, but I don’t think they are very well thought out. If the boys were as strong, smart, and agile as you suggest they are, then how did they get caught by my guards? And if the boys are so great at taking care of you, then why were you brought here, to me?” Boss Nox asked, looking down his nose at the little girl. He belched out of the side of his mouth, and one of the fat women sitting next to him turned her head away, stifling a laugh.
“I wasn’t brought here to you, we came to this building seeking shelter from the streets,” Scraps stated quickly. She stood up taller to him, finding that her repulsion from him gave her strength to stand up to him. She despised him and wanted to gain a victory over him, to be better than him. Nox scoffed and shoveled another piece of food into his mouth, letting a bit of it dangle from his lips.
“Seeking shelter from the streets? I thought you said these boys took good care of you, I thought you said they provided for you? If they gave you such protection and satisfied your needs, than why leave the streets at all?” Boss slurped up the last morsel of food only to have crumbs and chewed bits of it fly out of his mouth upon his reply. He began to cackle in a throaty, coughing manner, and more food escaped his lips. At first, no one else in the room laughed with him, but with a quickly raised eyebrow, the others joined in, and a fake and joyless laugh escaped their mouths. The only ones who seemed pleased with their laughing were the fat ladies at the fat man’s sides.
“Because of the Sun Sickness, of course. Isn’t that why you are in here, as well?” Scraps quickly jabbed back, her face stern and solid against his fat and lazy one. His laughing, and all the others’, ceased upon her response. He glared at her, his greasy skin dripping in small pools down his body. His eyes, deep and gray, penetrated hers, and she felt his anger coming toward her.
“I am here because I am ruler, and this is my domain. I am Boss Nox!” his blubbery lips spewed. “I am in charge here! And I am here because I choose to be here! You are here because I allow you to be here, and nothing more!” he sat back, folded his arms across his robust chest and stared up at the ceiling. He pursed his lips closed, leaving a small frown planted on his face, and let a loud, hot blast of air escape through his nose. “Where is the Captain?” he finally said, at a lowered volume. He could not stare down at the little girl, who seemed unmoved by his outburst, while everyone else had shrank back away from him.
“Coming, sir,” a weak voice said from a small distance away. Scraps turned in the direction of the voice, and she saw an elderly man, nearly twice as old as Doc appeared, walking with a cane toward them. He had on a brown jacket, with bronze colored buttons going up the front of it, and on his left lapel several different medallions were pinned. His head, large and bald, with liver spots and wrinkles, held a round cap, also brown, with a black bill. His pants were a lighter shade of brown, and his shoes were black, but scuffed. It was a uniform, and it seemed familiar to her, but Doc had to inform her that it was a military uniform, and that the elderly man was a former member of the Army, before it was given up for lost. Doc assumed, by his age and dress, that this man was not only alive during EMFH, but was serving in the military before the worst of it began.
“My new pretty claims that this man remembers the world before EMFH, Captain…what do you say?” Boss Nox gestured toward Doc with a lazy hand, and then quickly returned it folded between his elbow and his fatty ribs. The elderly man, still halfway across the room, paused in his walk and squinted his eyes in Doc’s direction.
“Impossible to say, sir…he looks younger than I am, but looks are deceiving,” the old man said, turning his eyes back toward the floor and continuing his journey toward the couch.
“You see, the Captain says you are deceiving,” Boss Nox bellowed down at Scraps, and again, huffed air out of his nose.
“I’m not deceiving…I don’t know what that means!” Scraps nearly shouted back, straightening her arms at her sides. Doc placed a hand on her shoulder, and gave a soft squeeze. She turned her face toward him, and he could see her anger at being called a name that she didn’t understand.
“It means he thinks you are lying,” Doc said calmly, and Scraps allowed more anger to flow into her face, her cheeks turning as red as Nox’s were fat.
“I am not a liar!! Doc has told us about the world before, and he’s old enough to know because he was a kid when it started!” Scraps returned her shouting at Boss Nox, and Doc admired her tenacious devotion to arguing with the fat man. The Captain approached Doc steadily, and upon standing directly in front of him let out a soft moan as he looked at Doc’s face.
“It’s possible, sir…he is an older man. He’s not as old as I am, but he could have been alive for it,” the old man turned his face away, and stepped two tiny steps toward the couch. He placed his cane directly in front of him, and folded his two wrinkled, worn hands together on top of it. His face wore a steady frown, but to Scraps, he still looked like a pleasant man to talk to, he had a kindness in his eyes, and he was the first person she had seen that seemed truly harmless.
“So, Captain, should he be allowed to stay, or do you find him boring?” Boss Nox asked, relaxing slightly on his cushioned perch.
“He can stay, and we can talk, at least for a little while,” the old man said, his body standing perfectly still, but his hands moving the cane in soft, unsteady shakes. Doc knew the shakes were uncontrollable, and he also knew they were a result of old age, and not the shakes of the sickness. In his mind, he debated whether it was a blessing or a curse for this man to be so old.
“Fine. My pretty and the old man stay,” Nox said, helping himself to another handful of the scraps on the upturned hubcap.
“What about Gaps and Mutt?” Scraps interjected, stepping directly up to the couch. Boss’ eyes widened at her approach, and he shrank back from her as though she were covered in disease. One of the fat ladies next to Boss placed an arm between them and pushed the little girl back a step. Scraps’ eyes never left Nox’s, but she let herself be pushed away from the fat man. As disgusting as she found him to look at, he smelled even worse.
“What about them, pretty? Your argument has not convinced me to let them stay, so they won’t.”
“Then I won’t stay,” Scraps protested, turning toward her brother and stepping back to him. “I’ll go when he goes.”
“Oh my dear,” Nox began to laugh, “they won’t be going anywhere.” His laughing increased, and this time, the others in the room laughed with him, and the laugh sounded genuine. As their voices echoed and increased, Scraps turned to look at her brother, who seemed just as confused as she was, and to Doc, who was quickly glancing around the room.
Scraps saw the old man, who had closed his eyes and turned his face down to his shoes, but she noticed he was shaking his head, and it frightened her. The kind old man did not agree with what they were all laughing at, and she spun looking for a clue. Mutt saw it first though, and his face began to show complete fear. He was staring at the hubcap full of meat scraps, but more specifically, at one of the bones. It was smooth, and white, like any other bone, but it was thick. When Scraps stared at it, too, she saw what Mutt saw. The bone was thicker than any dog or cat bone. She turned her eyes from the bone in the dish, to Mutt’s arm, and saw that they were similar in size. When the pieces fit together in her mind, she screamed and fell to the floor.
“You see, dear…the boys won’t be going anywhere…but they certainly won’t be staying for very long, either!” Boss Nox bellowed even louder, his large belly warbling and shaking, and Scraps began to feel dizzy. As she cried on the floor, Cricket and his guards grabbed the boys by the arms and dragged them from the large room. Scraps fought to hold onto her brother, but she was quickly separated from him by the nearly invisible man in the ill-fitted suit. “Show her to my room,” Boss Nox instructed, “And Captain, you may talk with the old man if you wish, but not here. I don’t care to hear about things before EMFH right now.”
Warning: it's about 17 pages long in Word, so it may take some time to read.
5
The sun began to push up into the sky, cooking it from the light pink of dawn to a near blood red, and Doc pulled the collar of his ratted shirt up. He elbowed Mutt, who dragged his eyes open. Mutt cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes once, then twice, and then pulled his own collar up. Gaps blinked his eyes slowly, and looked at the red blanket that he had always known as sky. He lightly nudged his sister, and she opened her eyes, then closed them again, and lay down her head. Gaps looked at Doc, and shook his head, and nudged his sister again. Doc laughed to himself, as Scraps pulled her head from Gaps’ lap.
“Use this, when we walk, but stay in the shadows as much as possible. It’ll help avoid the Sun Sickness, at least a little,” Doc pulled a wrinkled tube-like object from behind him and passed it to Gaps, who looked at it curiously. Mutt reached into a brown knap-sack that was behind him and pulled out a similar object, only his was a dirty brown, instead of weathered and beaten black, like Doc’s.
“You use it like this, and it’ll block the sun,” Mutt said, snapping a strap open and pushing along the center pole of the object. The brown material folded out and Mutt held it over his head, and his face was immediately darkened in shade. “It’s called an umbrella!” Mutt sang cheerfully. Scraps smiled and turned to her brother, who flipped the snap open and pushed the fabric away from him. When it was fully extended, he held it up and his sister smiled in the new shade from the red sky.
“We’ll have to share until we find a few more, if we find a few more, but it’ll be better than trying to dodge the sun all day,” Doc said, rising to his feet.
He pulled from his long coat a pair of gloves, and although they covered his fingers and the backs of his hands, the palms had small holes in it, and the bands near the wrists were tattered and shredded. He pulled from his own pack a tattered ball cap, and secured that to his head. Doc reached back into his pack and pulled another tattered cloth from inside of it, and draped the cloth around his neck. He tucked it under the color, and folded the end into the front of his shirt. The only skin that was visible now was his face, and that was in the shade from his hat.
“I won’t need an umbrella, so do the three of you think you can manage to share the umbrellas with no problems?”
Mutt nodded yes, but Gaps simply pulled his sister in closer to him, and looked at the circle of shade around the two of them. He tipped his face slightly, and Doc took that as a yes. Without another word, Doc turned and headed back up the alley. He listened to the footsteps of the three behind him, but turned his eyes to every possible hiding spot along the street. He saw the steps leading down to the tunnels on the far side of the street, and guessed the distance to be nearly 100 yards in the sun. Hopefully, without anyone jumping out at them, hoping to rob them of whatever morsels they may have, they’d make the quick trip easily. Just the same, Doc veered along the building to avoid a parked car with all its windows shattered out. The Sun Sickness made people do crazy things, but survival and desire to live made them even crazier. He wanted to take no chances.
When he saw the street was clear, and he felt secure that the car wasn’t hiding any villainous survivors, he marched out into the red sunlight. The warmth struck him immediately, and he felt as though he had stepped from the shady cover of an autumn day into the sweltering heat of the desert in summer. The sweat popped on his forehead and began to drip. He turned to see that Mutt was immediately behind him, but Gaps and Scraps remained glued to the building.
“Keep the umbrella between you and the sun, make sure your skin is in the dark of the shade, and you’ll be alright,” Doc said. Mutt stopped and looked back at the girl and her brother, but said nothing. He did his best to look encouraging, but refused to smile or make the trip seem simple and easy. He knew well enough that it wasn’t. Minutes in the sun could turn into months of pain and anguish, Doc had told him.
“How far are we going?” Gaps asked.
“Just to the tunnel, the entrance is there,” Doc pointed to the stairs leading downward through the pavement. “Once inside the tunnel, we’ll be safe from the sun.” Gaps looked from where they stood to the hole in the pavement, and then he looked at his sister. He leaned down and whispered into her ear, and she clutched his shirt tighter, squeezing herself into him. The two then stepped away from the building, and out into the red sun. They quickened their pace, and as they did, Doc and Mutt continued on to the other side of the street. Doc continued to look around them, but made sure to keep his face turned down, and away from the morning sun. In the distance, he saw a sickened soul wandering in the street. The skin hung limp, and the eye sockets were dark craters, sunken away from the face. Doc could see the water vapors of heat rising from its skin, and he knew that if they stayed out in the sun for very much longer, they’d all end up like it. Luckily, it was far enough away from them that it was no threat. He also counted himself lucky that the girl hadn’t looked up to see it, and get frightened herself.
The steps were blackened with dirt and litter, but they weren’t slick or dangerous. Doc scampered down them quickly, and Mutt dropped down just as quickly. Gaps and Scraps navigated the stairs much slower, but still hurried down into the darkness. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Mutt showed Gaps how to fold the umbrella back into its small, tube form, and Gaps handed it over to Doc.
Gaps looked around at his new surroundings and recognized it. The tunnels were dangerous places at night, making even those with the best vision blind in the darkness, and it wasn’t much better during the day. He had felt that dangerous things happened in the tunnels, and he wasn’t too far off. A sinking feeling hit him and he turned to Doc with worry in his eyes.
“This tunnel once had trains that took people from one side of the city to another, and everywhere in between. They called them ‘subways’ in the old world,” Mutt said to Gaps, pointing to a faded map with red, blue and yellow lines on it. The lines seemed to flow up and down and left to right, but none of them circled around.
“This feels dangerous,” Gaps said, and Doc smiled. The boy was good with his instinct, and felt that was another edge for their small traveling group. He has had many students over the years, and although he could teach them anything in a book, he could not teach instinct.
“During the night, only the brave or the stupid will come down here. It is a place of unknown. During the day, near the stairs it is a place of refuge from the sun, and a safe place of rest. But, we are not here to rest,” Doc said his last statement louder, and into the dark tunnels the expanded away from them.
“Then what are you here for?” a voice called back, and Scraps leapt into her brother’s arms.
“Travel. We’re moving upward.” Doc called back. Slowly, from one of the blackened recesses, a figure moved into the shadowed landing area. Its clothes were ragged, torn and dirty, and the creature wearing them was thin, and gangly.
“Toll?”
“Two rats, and half a dog.” Doc reached into his pack and produced the dead bodies of two rats, and a newspaper wrapped object that Gaps immediately smelled as the meal they were eating the night before. The skinny figure warbled closer to them, and held out a small hand. Doc gently handed over the rats by their tales, and the skinny figure tucked them into its shirt. It eyed the rest of the group, then took the dog and sniffed it.
“Half a dog because you ate the other half, or because you had to trim it?”
“Ate it last night” Doc answered, and placed a hand on his stomach to pat it and show that it was full. The skinny figure seemed satisfied with his answer, and moved back away.
“You said upward?” the figure paused in its retreat. Doc nodded in response. “Stay to the middle of the bars, and upward is that way. There is another station close by, and a third after a long walk. Your toll will get you as far as the fourth station, but I can’t tell how far a walk that would be, I’ve never been to the fourth station.” The figure disappeared back into a dark shadow as quickly as it appeared, and from the dark hole, its voice said one last thing, “The password is Red.”
Doc moved to the edge of the platform and dropped down. He turned and held out his hands as Mutt stepped off the edge, and Doc lowered him to the ground. Gaps pushed Scraps forward, and she allowed Doc to lower her down in the same manner. Gaps jumped down himself, landing awkwardly on the metal rail and crossties below him, but kept on his feet. He looked at Doc, who motioned him toward the middle of the tracks. Together the four began to walk in the direction the skinny figure had pointed. Slowly, the light toned down behind them, and soon they found themselves in complete darkness. Scraps had taken Gaps’ hand, and Gaps even felt himself reach out and take Doc’s hand. It was accepted easily enough, but once Doc held it, Gaps felt foolish for needing to reach out to this stranger. He wanted to pull his hand back, but he felt that would be an even bigger mistake.
Mutt finally broke the silence.
“Is the fourth station far enough up for us, or will we need to travel much farther?”
“We’ll have to ask if we can get our location at the third station, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Without knowing how far the fourth station is, it may be easier to leave at the third,” Doc answered. “How are your eyes adjusting, Gaps?”
“It’s hard to see anything. Why?”
“Because Mutt is about to hunt, and if your eyes had adjusted, you could hunt with him, and increase our wealth. But, soon enough you’ll see well enough.”
As Doc finished speaking, Gaps knew that Mutt had left the group by a few feet. He wasn’t sure if Mutt was leaving when he broke the silence, or had just left, but he was quick, and the slight noise he made came from several feet away in the tunnel. Scraps squeezed his hand harder, and Gaps gave her a reassuring squeeze of his own. A second noise was heard to the side of the tunnel, and it resembled a squeak that had been cut off in mid-squeak. A rat had just been squeezed to death, and it was quickly followed by another. Mutt was a very good hunter, and for the first time since meeting the duo, Gaps was impressed with the boy.
“Only two on this side, the nest has been trampled,” Mutt whispered when he rejoined the group. Gaps wanted to hunt as well, but his eyes still remained numb to his surroundings, and he could only judge by sound. He also knew he’d have to remain with his sister while he was unable to see.
“Two will work fine for now. Hopefully there will be more after the next station. Can you see it coming up, Gaps?” Doc gave his hand a soft squeeze, and Gaps instinctively squeezed back.
“No, not yet. At least, I don’t think I do, but I see purple spots, like shadows moving,” he answered.
“That’s good, those spots are your eyes adjusting…when they settle, try to focus them.”
The spots danced around a bit more, and Gaps stopped walking. He heard that the other three stopped with him. The slight purple he saw now took a more circular shape, and a steadier one, and Gaps realized he was looking down the tunnel, and the shade he saw ahead of him was in fact a dull light. It was the next station.
“I can see it now!” Gaps nearly shouted, and Doc and Mutt shushed him immediately. He clapped his hand over his mouth. After stifling a short laugh, he whispered once again, “I can see it now.”
“That’s very good. Now, when we reach the station, I want you and Scraps to stay between the rails. Don’t look up the stairs, your eyes will hurt from the light, and it’ll take you a long time to adjust back and forth between the light and the dark. It’s not dangerous, but it is very bothersome, at least until you’ve used the tunnels a few more times.”
“I always thought the tunnels were dangerous, but I don’t feel so scared now.” Scraps peeped out. Her voice was soft and gentle.
“Right now you are safe, and watched, but when the red sky turns black, no one stays to help and anything can happen in the tunnel,” a strange voice responded to her. This voice was different from the skinny figure’s voice, and Scraps felt it sounded more like a female. The sudden noise from the side of the tunnel still made her jump with a tingle of fear.
“Make no mistake, the tunnel is still dangerous, to those who come here without welcome, to those who will not pay their toll,” a deeper voice said, from the far side of the tunnel, and a small clank echoed through the darkness. A larger clang followed, this one from much closer, and a last one seemed to bang from directly in front of them. Gaps eyes saw the shadow move, and knew that it held something in its hand, but his eyes were still like a newborn’s, and he did not understand what he was seeing.
“We have paid our toll, and trust the password is good,” Doc said, standing firm. Again, a soft clank of metal on metal as the dark figure now stood a few feet in front of them. Gaps could finally see that the figure was a man, a larger man, well fed, but not fat, and in his hand, he held a long, steel pipe. He tapped the end of it against the rail at their feet.
“What would that password be?” the man asked, and the female voice Scraps had heard first soon found a body to match it, as the second figure slithered up behind the man with the pipe.
“Red,” Doc answered, still with a steady tone in his voice. Gaps turned his head to look for Mutt, and saw that Mutt was standing obediently upright next to Doc, and so Gaps straightened up himself. As his shoulders pulled back and his back straightened, Gaps felt a certain surge of confidence enter his body.
“That is a good password. I hope your journey is safe.” The man clanged his pipe against the rail again, and stepped to the side, off the rail. The woman behind him also retreated. The four began to walk again, but as they moved closer to the light ahead, Gaps realized he was no longer holding Doc’s hand…and he wasn’t holding Scraps’ hand, either. He turned to look for her, but did not see her right next to him. He spun to look behind him, but all he saw was darkness. The shadowy shapes he had just seen seemed to have vanished, even though he knew going back ten feet or so would reveal them to him once again.
“Scraps, where are you?”
“I’m here,” her voice answered, from that ten feet or so behind him, “I’m talking to the blind man.”
Doc took Gaps hand, and they retraced their steps to the post.
“How did you know I was blind?” the man asked, his voice steady and deep.
“The banging. I thought you couldn’t see us because it’s dark…but Mutt and Gaps are starting to see some things in the dark, but you still banged the stick on the metal. That’s how you know where it is, right?” Scraps said, her voice seemed cheery in the dark, and unafraid of anything.
“You are very wise, little one. Many have passed this way, and very few have ever noticed that…obstacle.”
“I don’t think it’s an obstacle, you’re probably very good down here, and you probably have an advantage over most anybody else who comes down here. You could probably stay here even at night and not know the difference, can’t you?” she asked, almost sounding glad to know the stranger with the cane.
“Oh no, I would never stay down here at night. Even with my advantage, as you called it, I could not stay down here. I may be able to move in the dark easier than those with sight, but I cannot fight when I cannot see.” But don’t you worry about me, little one. Your group was heading somewhere, and you have paid a fine and decent toll. It’s best you get your group moving. But, Scraps, should you and your group come back this way, you have a Gold pass from me.” The blind man stuck out his hand, and Doc saw that the skin was still in tact, there were no abrasions or blisters on it. Scraps looked to her brother, and he said, “They call it ‘shaking hands’ and it’s what they used to do when meeting new people on peaceful terms.” He turned and looked at Doc, and although he couldn’t see it, he knew that Doc was smiling back. “It’s still weird, though,” Gaps added.
Scraps stuck out her hand, holding it a few inches from the blind man’s hand, and the woman who was standing next to the blind man reached over, pushing the two hands together. The blind man gave it two quick shakes, and then let the hand go, and Scraps giggled.
“My name was Max, but they call me Bat now. I hope you folks have a good journey, where ever you are headed.”
“Thank you very much, Max. Should we come this way again, we will bring a good toll for you, and a decent bonus for your kindness,” Doc said, and he reached down to take Scraps’ hand. He led her away, and in the dark, she waved behind them. The woman waved back.
6
They passed the next station with little fuss, and Gaps remembered to not look up the stairs at the light, but even with his head turned away, he could still see how bright everything else seemed. The rails they walked along were lit up brightly, and he could count every pebble under their feet. He noticed the Mutt kept walking with his head held up, and again felt impressed with the younger boy’s skill. Although it was not intimidation, it was a note he made sure to remember, that the boy was more than a tag along to the older man.
They headed back into the dark, continuing on their way, and as the light faded away, Gaps straightened his neck, holding his chin up once more. In the dark, although it felt slightly less dark than it had been when they started, he saw something small move. Before he could identify it, Mutt had dodged in front of them, over the rail, and tackled to the ground where the something had been. The sudden movement had Scraps squirming, and the muffled voices seemed to carry loudly. When Mutt returned, he held a thin animal by its tail. At first, Gaps thought it was a large rat, but as Mutt walked in front of him, he saw that it was a cat. Mutt stuffed the cat into his pack, and the three continued on.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Doc asked, his voice low and hushed.
“I think I did, for a second, but he was quicker,” Gaps answered.
“You’ll get quicker, too, but it’s good that you saw it. You can’t catch what you can’t see. You’ve taken a bigger step into the world.”
“If the last part is long enough, I’ll show you how to catch them,” Mutt said, offering his advice in a secretive manner.
As they walked, Gaps understood why they needed to whisper. In the darkness, everything seemed still, and although they were whispering and making as little noise as possible, each step was amplified in the dark. And as his eyes began to focus in the dark, he could also hear the movement of the rats and animals in the corners of the tunnel. On top of them, he also realized that every twenty or thirty feet or so, they were passing a sleeping body. This tunnel was more like a hotel than a passageway, and their noise only disturbed those who had no where else to sleep.
In the distance, Gaps saw the light, and pointed it out to Doc. Unexpectedly, Scraps whispered that she saw it, too. As a reward to her, Gaps put his arm around her and gave her a half hug. In the tunnel, they saw the next guard long before he said anything to them.
“We request permission to determine our location at this station, if it pleases you.” Doc said, and Gaps wrinkled his eyebrow at the funny speech.
“That depends on your password, dude,” the guard responded. His voice sounded young, and Doc wrinkled his own brow.
“Are you a new guard at this station?” Doc asked.
“Password first, then we can chat if you want, old man.” The voice was brash, and Doc knew that this was not the normal attitude of a tunnel post. His instinct told him to get ready for trouble, but he wasn’t sure what kind of trouble to expect. Since they remained in the dark still, they had the advantage of a retreat, but to run from the unknown would not get them closer to shelter for the night.
“The password is Red.”
“Works for me, bud. Where you going, and I’ll tell you your location?” Doc knew that this was a set up question. In the new world, a person’s destination didn’t matter much to anyone. One place was just as destroyed, diseased, and worthless as the next, so why go anywhere, unless you knew of something better.
“I don’t know what it’s called. Perhaps the boy could go up and look around for a second?”
“With a red, you can go up one more station, why waist it on a look around?” Doc knew this was a bad situation, and that the new guard would want to charge them for leaving and coming back down. It reminded him of when someone stepped out of line for the swing as a kid, they had to go back to the end of the line, not get back in right where they were.
“The three of us will wait here, if he can go alone, for less than one minute?” Doc bargained, “We can offer one rat, freshly caught.”
“One rat for a peek, works for me, dude.” The guard sauntered over and snatched the rat from Mutt’s hand. As soon as the dead animal was gone from his grip, Doc lifted Mutt onto the platform, and he scurried up the steps. He pulled his umbrella from his pack and unfolded it before he reached the top, and the other three waited in silence while he was gone. The guard looked the rat over, and squeezed its side for plumpness. Mutt came hustling down, and collapsed the umbrella as he raced over to the platform.
“We’re a lot closer, but it’s still half a day walk in sunlight,” he reported.
“But are we next to it, or diagonal?” Doc asked, and Matt glanced upwards in thought.
“Diagonal…we have to keep moving upward, it’s too far from here.” Doc nodded, and held his arms up to bring Mutt back down to the tracks. As the four of them renewed their journey, Gaps said over his shoulder, “Take it easy, dude.”
“Whatever,” the guard answered.
Once the dark had surrounded them completely, Gaps began to look around for animals. He saw Mutt charge off and come back triumphant a few times, but he struggled to find the glowing eyes in the dark. His eyes had begun to adjust to the light of the station far quicker than he anticipated, and now found himself struggling to see as well as he did before. Slowly, the shadows took shapes, and he would catch a glimpse of an animal or two before Mutt could tackle them and bring them in. Finally, as Mutt was diving after one more rat, Gaps saw a second set of eyes on his side of the tracks. Without hesitating, he charged forward, and as the rat turned its head to run, he leapt for the creature. He threw his arms out in front of him, and watched in amazement as the creature dodged away from his hands, and the air gushed out of his lungs as his body collapsed to the floor. The creature scampered away quickly, not bothering to look back.
“That was good, real good. You are quick,” Mutt said, coming over to help Gaps up. Gaps brushed off the help and stood up, upset with himself.
“I didn’t get it, so I must not be that quick.”
“But I didn’t tell you the trick yet, and you still almost got him. That’s faster than I’ve ever been,” Mutt said, not bothered by Gaps avoiding his help.
“There’s a trick to it?”
“Yes,” Mutt said, getting a little excited. “When you leap, you have to leap to where the creature is going to run, and keep your body so that it’ll land where the creature already is, so that if it runs straight forward, as most of them do, they charge right into your hands, and if they turn back to avoid your hands, you catch them underneath you. It may get messy if they are really weak and you land on one, but the meat’s still good, either way.”
“And what if it runs to the side?”
“Then move your hand to the side. It’ll happen from time to time, but not very often. I’ve only missed one today.”
Gaps found that he was now on the outside of the group, with Mutt next to him, and then Doc, and Scraps on the outside of the other side. He felt nervous for a second. He had never had anyone between he and his sister for as long as he could remember, and now he was walking down a tunnel with two people between them. It unsettled his stomach a bit, but before he could fix the problem, Mutt raced away. He watched Mutt’s body fly through the air, and land just behind a scurrying rat, the same rat he just tried to catch, and come up with the animal. He had snapped its neck as soon as he got it.
“Trust me, you’ll be snagging these guys within no time. And if we take the tunnels again, I’ll show you how to catch the cats.”
“You don’t do the same thing?” Gaps asked, and Mutt chuckled a little.
“It’s close, but cats are almost guaranteed to run to the side, so you land next to them, not behind them.” Mutt tucked the rat into his pack, and the four continued on through the dark.
The distance between the third station and the fourth was a lot longer than the distance for the first three stations combined, but the journey was quicker than they had expected, with Mutt and Gaps diving off the sides of the trail every now and again. Scraps had begun a hushed conversation with Doc, but mostly they spoke about the things she saw in the tunnel. Her eyes had adjusted as well, but she lacked the speed to help Mutt and Gaps catch anything she saw. Scraps was the one who noticed that they passed a fewer amount of sleeping bodies, but the occasional body was seen lying to the sides. The dark no longer bothered her, but Doc reminded her that any one of the sleeping bodies could be awoken, and any one of those could be in a foul and dangerous mood if they did. So, she hushed her voice, and they continued on toward the fourth station. She also pointed out that they were approaching the light.
Gaps stopped diving for rats, despite feeling exhilaration at hunting once again, and Mutt also stopped his hunt, a little tired from the leaping and scrambling. The group gathered together, and they approached their last guard.
“This is where we get out,” Doc informed the guard, and instead of exchanging pleasantries, the figure merely pointed toward the stairs. Doc helped Mutt up onto the platform, and then lifted Scraps. Gaps pulled himself up, and Doc followed suit, huffing and groaning as he lifted himself up. His knees pops when he stood and he struggled to stand up straight. With a shake of his head, he muttered that he ‘didn’t have too many of those left’, but when Mutt asked him what he said, he replied, “Nothing.”
After gathering their packs and taking out the umbrellas, Doc covered his skin once again, letting Mutt take the lead out of the subway. Mutt told him where the sun was, and as Doc came up the stairs, he lowered his chin to keep the sun off his face. Luckily, the subway stairs were close enough to a building that they soon moved from the searing heat into the cool shade, and Doc could finally look around. A little over ten city blocks away, he saw their target. The building stood amazingly tall, but did not tower above many of the buildings around it. The difference between that building and the others around it was the top. Most of the taller buildings had been toppled, or destroyed in violence. The building they were trying to reach was still in tact, and the top dozen floors still had windows in them. The lower floors were just as abused as any other building, but there was refuge in the top, and the small group hoped to find shelter inside those windows.
7
When the small group met the base of the building, they saw that most of the bottom half of the building had been broken and abused similar to the others. The windows and doors were ripped away, smashed, and left wide open, but not because of the explosions of bombs, but because of riots and rampaging people, so furious at the world they felt no other option than to hurl a chair, plant, or even themselves, through the glass. The lobby of the building was a complete wreck, and what little was left inside was smashed into unidentifiable pieces of garbage. Standing on the sidewalk outside the front door, the four survivors stared up at the top third of the building, the portion that was encased completely in glass, the portion that represented safety. Although she never said anything, Scraps felt uneasy staring up at the behemoth of concrete.
“How far up do you think it is?” Mutt asked, his chin raised up, and his neck a smooth straight line down into his shirt.
“I can’t be certain, but I’d guess it’s nearly 40 stories to the first floor with windows, and perhaps another fifteen or so to the top,” Doc answered, tearing his eyes away from the skyscraper to look at his students. “We should be able to make it up before sundown, and perhaps you’ll get to see an actual sunset, without fear of the Sun Sickness.”
The three children looked first to Doc, and then to the inside of the lobby. They began to walk forward, but Scraps felt her feet tighten, and become sluggish. Gaps gave her hand a slight tug, and that seemed to free her from her post.
The debris in the lobby was no obstacle for them, and they found the elevator shaft to be wide open. The cables had been snapped, and the car itself seemed to have been removed, although how was anybody’s guess. Doc leaned his head inside the square opening and looked upward. Without sunlight, he could not see very far upward, the shaft encased in darkness. He straightened up and looked around, spotting the staircase and pointing it out to the young ones. Mutt marched forward and tore open the door. The concrete stairs lay directly ahead of him, with bright yellow handrails, and little caution strips at the edge of each step. He smiled back at the others, and they followed him into the stairwell.
“Now, I don’t want to frighten you, but I doubt we’ll be the only ones who have thought of coming here. In fact I’m pretty sure we’re not, otherwise, the rest of the windows would be smashed out already. The people we find may be a bit unruly and defensive of their dwelling, as they should be. We may try to barter with them, but if they are aggressive or hostile, we shall keep moving on and hope to find another shelter. Hopefully, we’ll discover their nature before anything becomes violent. Do not do anything to provoke anyone we come across, is that clear?” Doc said, switching his gaze from one child to the next as he spoke. He stared at them in a clear and hard manner, hoping to drive home the point he was making. Mutt nodded instantly, and Scraps looked worried, but Gaps simply reached behind him and patted his slingshot. Doc stared at him longer than the others, and finally Gaps nodded in acceptance of Doc’s wishes.
They began to climb the stairs, Mutt counting off each floor as they passed another door. They had stopped at every ten floors to open the door and see what was left. The first stop opened on a nearly identical replica of the lobby, only the scenery out the window had changed, from a street level view of the next building over to a slightly raised level view. But what they noted mostly was the lack of glass.
After the second stop, twenty floors up, Mutt and Gaps walked to the edge of the building to peer down at their greater height. Scraps remained a few feet behind, with Doc, noting that she felt uncomfortable with the feeling in her stomach from the view. Doc noted that she must be afraid of heights, a common phobia among most people who had never climbed higher than a two story house in their life. The boys snickered at the mention of her being afraid, but quickly let the issue drop. Gaps would never try to hurt his sister’s feelings, and Mutt knew that mocking someone’s fear only gave them permission to mock his own fears. Doc had taught him that.
At the third stop, the boys snuck to the edge, but kept their feet farther back than before, and only peeked over the side. The wind whistled through the open area, and it felt stronger, as though it could push them over the edge if they weren’t careful. However, now being thirty stories up, they saw a slight change in the setting. The furniture was smashed, but in larger pieces, and more identifiable. The floor had less dirt on it, and a few of the windows had shards of glass still in it. Mutt saw a long, smooth sliver sticking out of one pane, and with careful fingers, pulled it loose. Scraps tilted her head as she watched him take the clear object and slip it into his pack.
“Glass is sharp, and can cut things, and that may come in handy,” Mutt said as he rejoined the group. Doc looked around at the other pains and considered taking a sliver for himself as well, but decided against it. Something told him it might prove to cause more harm than good if they tried to use it like a knife, but if the boy wanted it, the boy could have it.
They decided to stop after every other floor to check the windows at that point, noting that they must have been getting close. Their legs were tired, and Scraps made them stop on a landing twice already to catch her breath. Although the group agreed to the stops reluctantly, Doc was grateful for the chance to rest his knees as well.
As they opened the door on the thirty-sixth floor, Scraps began to smile broadly at their discovery. Three of the windows were completely in tact. The smooth panes were smudged and dirty, but solid and un-cracked, just the same. Gaps walked to within inches of the protective square and tapped his knuckles on it lightly. He smiled at the sound of his knocking. A breeze still ripped through the open areas of that floor, but they were close to a warm place to sleep. And they could tell by the color of the sky turning from light red to a darker maroon that if they hurried, they would get to see the sunset.
With renewed vigor, the foursome ran up two more flights, and Mutt threw the door open with Gaps on his heels. As they entered that floor, sweat dripping from their foreheads, but grins stretching their faces, they saw something they hadn’t expected. The floor was covered in completely clean carpeting. And most of the windows were solidly in place. The furniture had been taken apart, rather than smashed, and all the chairs and desks were missing their legs. Doc grabbed the boys by the arms to keep them close to him.
“Now I know we aren’t the only ones who have come here. It is okay to be glad we have reached a high enough level to stop climbing the stairs for the night, but we must be on our guard until we make sure that we are the only ones here,” Doc glanced around, slightly impressed with the condition of the floor and a bit wide-eyed with hope himself.
He released the boy’s shoulders, and Gaps immediately took out the slingshot. It was the first time Mutt had seen the weapon, and he felt an overwhelming sensation of wonder, first at the glassed in floor, and secondly at the deadly weapon in his new friend’s hand. Gaps reached into his tattered pockets and pulled out a handful of odd shaped stones and rocks. He loaded one craggy piece into the sling, and pinched the soft pouch between his thumb and forefinger, pulling the bands back slightly. He’d pull it back a few more inches before firing, but he didn’t intend to fire it unless he saw something worth hitting.
“We should look around first, before getting any ideas about setting up camp for the night, right?” he asked Doc, who nodded in approval. Mutt broke his gaze from the object in Gaps’ hand, and forced himself to look around for any other people. The two boys began to move together, checking behind the squatty desks sitting on the floor, instead of on their staunch legs. Scraps began to look around as well, but she stopped when looking out one of the windows on the west side of the building.
“The sun is going down!” she called out to the others, and trotted over to get a better look out the window. She ran directly up to the glass and placed her fingers on the pane, her eyes widened at looking directly toward the sun, without any of its fierce heat bearing down on her. Suddenly, a hand, smudged in dirt and grime, snaked out and grabbed her around the shoulders, just under her neck. Across her neck, a jagged piece of glass was pressed against her. She felt her skin get tingly, and her nerves jumped to life. She cried out in fear.
“That’s right, Missy, the sun is going down, and if you don’t shut that screaming up, it’ll be the last one you ever see,” the owner of the smudgy hand said, his words snaked into her ear, hot and disgusting. She winced against the jagged glance, and felt one small poke against her skin. The poke made her cry again, and she felt a bit of liquid squeeze out of her neck. She imagined he had cut her anyway, and soon she would die, but when her air was not interrupted, and she felt the liquid stop, she realized it was just a scratch. Still, her heart beat wildly, and she wanted to cry out.
The man holding Scraps was covered in filth, and his right hand, the one holding the glass to Scraps’ throat, was wrapped in brown rag around the palm. Mutt thought of his own piece of glass and realized he’d have to wrap his hand in the same way to ever use the glass he had stored in his pack, unless he wanted to cut his hand to shreds. The dark stains and patches on the man holding Scraps’ clothes told him the man must have already cut himself at least a dozen times.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Doc said, looking directly into the man’s eyes, and holding out his own hands to show he meant no harm. The man stood behind Scraps, his head was a foot higher than hers, even with his back hunched, and he stared at Doc, and then turned his attention to Gaps.
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t mind telling your friend to put down the sling,” the man responded, his eyes glared at Gaps, and Gaps returned the stare with fierceness. His fingers had drawn the pouch back as far as he could manage, and he raised the Y shaped object up to aim it directly at the man’s head.
“Put it down, son. It’ll only get her hurt,” Doc said, keeping his arms out, but turning his head toward Gaps.
“Tell him to let her go, and I’ll put down the sling,” Gaps said back, keeping his eyes locked and the sling pointed at the man holding his sister.
“I’ll tell you what, since you seem ready to shoot me with that, I’ll just slit her throat, and take my chances with the three of you, how’s that?” the man said, and pushed the glass tighter into Scraps’ throat. Scraps whimpered, and was sure she felt blood pouring out of her neck this time. The tears were unstoppable, as the fear of her dying swept over her body. For good measure, the man holding her used his other hand to yank back on her hair, stretching her neck, and showing the others that his blade of glass was digging into her skin.
“Alright! Alright!” Gaps yelled, and he loosed his pull on the pouch. The rock he had loaded it with dropped to the floor, and he tossed the sling onto the ground a few feet in front of him. The man holding his sister loosened his grip on her hair, and gave some slack to the glass digging into her neck, but still held it to her skin. With a soft nudge, he walked her over toward the sling, and used his heel to kick it farther away from Gaps.
“Now dearie, bend on over and pick up the nice sling for me, and I might take this glass away from your throat a bit,” the man instructed as he pushed down on Scraps’ shoulders. Slowly, Scraps put out her hand and took the sling from the floor, and held it up over her shoulder for the man to take it. Releasing his grip on her, but keeping the glass at her neck, the man snatched the slingshot and rolled it in his fingers, looking the weapon over.
“You’ve got the sling, now let her go,” Gaps barked out, the angry look still burning in his eyes.
“Not just yet, boy. We’ve got to see some friends of mine, first,” the dirty man said, tucking the slingshot into a back pocket. He stood up straighter, though, and with his newly freed hand, pointed toward a back corner of the floor they were on. Gaps kept his eyes locked with the dirty man’s, and Doc searched Scraps’ neck to see if she was cut deeply, but Mutt turned to look in the direction the man pointed, and his stomach leapt to his throat with fear. In the back corner four equally dirty and smudgy men stood up and began to walk their way. Mutt let out a defeated sigh, and the other two turned to see their new visitors as well. Doc dropped his hands to his sides, and Gaps bit his lip in anger. He felt a deep regret for agreeing to come along with the old man and the boy.
“What’ve you got there, Cricket?” one of the newcomers asked as they walked over. Each held a leg to a desk, patting it against their palms like a club, and eyeing the strangers Cricket had found.
“Oh, I’ve got us a ticket for food, for certain. I may have even gotten us a ticket for bed and bath, as well,” Cricket said, smiling. His teeth were rotted and yellow, and his breath was muggy and hot against the top of Scraps’ head. The tears kept flowing from her eyes, leaving stains along her cheeks, but she made no sound, for fear that he’d jab the glass against her again.
“Well, let’s see what else we have here,” another of the men said, and he snatched the pack off of Doc’s back. The three began to rummage through the pack, and while they all stared at each object taken from the pack, Mutt quickly dug into his own pack and slipped out the shard of glass. He tucked it under his shirt and into the waist of his pants. He hoped they wouldn’t make him sit down before he got a chance to move it again, or it might break, or worse yet, stab him, but he didn’t want them to get another weapon away from them. And that’s how he saw the shard now, not as a cutting tool, but as a weapon, possibly their only weapon. The three scavengers took what they had pulled out and wanted for themselves, and then tucked the dead rats and meat back into the pack.
“Your turn, kid,” another said, turning their attention to Mutt. He slipped the straps off his shoulders and held the bag out for them as they approached. With hungry greed, they took the bag, and tore into it, like they did with Doc’s. After counting the food Mutt had caught for them in the tunnel, they all smiled and patted themselves on the back for a job well done.
“Let’s take them up to the Boss, and get ourselves a meal,” Cricket said, pushing Scraps back to her brother violently. She nearly fell at his feet, but Gaps caught her. He shot a hateful look at Cricket, who only smiled and waggled the piece of glass he held. The other men began poking at Mutt and Doc, pushing them toward the stairwell once again.
“Up we go, boys, eleven doors, no stops. It’s time for you to meet the Boss.”
8
At the landing for the eleventh door, a man stood silently, wearing what was left of a three piece suit. His tie had been torn and shredded, and the cuffs of his sleeves were mangled and uneven. His pants had holes in the knees, and they hung just above his ankles, the hem being cut off completely. Doc assumed it was the suit of someone much taller than the person now wearing it, and it had been modified for the shorter user.
“Jeeves, we are here to see the Boss, and we’re bringing presents,” Cricket announced cheerily. Jeeves stood motionless at the door, and surveyed the group.
“I shall have to announce you,” Jeeves said, his voice dry and old, even though the body it came from appeared to be younger than Doc. Cricket rolled his eyes, and turned his attention back to the group on the stairs. Jeeves pulled the door open a hair’s length and disappeared inside without a sound.
“I sure do hope the Boss likes you,” Cricket said, pointing his piece of glass first at Gaps, and then at Mutt, “and I sure do hope the Boss takes mercy on you,” he said jabbing the end of the glass lightly into Doc’s chest, nearly pushing him back off the step he was on, “but I know the Boss is gonna like you, missy.” Cricket leaned his face down a few inches from Scraps’, and he licked his lips. The foul air coming from his mouth made her cringe, and she turned her face away from him. When she did, he grabbed her chin with his smudged hand and gave her cheek a quick lick with his tongue. “She tastes sweet like candy, boys!” Cricket laughed and the three others standing behind them all laughed with him.
The door opened behind Cricket, and Jeeves ushered them inside, his face still somber like stone, showing no emotion at all. Cricket walked brazenly out of the stairwell, his dirty feet nearly gliding along the carpeted floor. Doc looked around at the floor when they had entered and was amazed at how well preserved everything was. It was still a wreck, with desks turned this way and that, but it was organized, and placed all around were couches, and cushions, and at one end, like at the end of a grand hallway, was a large sofa, and upon the sofa sat a fat creature, with strands of hair that seemed to come more from the side and back of its head than the top, and the skin was spotted with liver spots. The skin itself seemed almost yellow, and its teeth were half missing. The shirt it wore hung open down the belly, and the belly it had was large, round, and oily. On either side of the fat creature were two women, both of whom were also plump, but not nearly as large as the man on the couch, and their hair was a rats nest of curls and kinks. Each held a silver dish in their hands, and Doc noted that they were old hubcaps that had been cleaned and shined. In the hubcaps were bones and tiny morsels of food. The bones were large, with cooked meat still on them. The fat creature smiled at Cricket as he strolled up toward the couch.
“It better be good, Cricket…the sun has dipped down and you are interrupting my breakfast,” the fat man said. His cheeks warbled when he spoke, and Mutt marveled at the sheer size of him. In his whole life, Mutt had never seen anyone that wasn’t bony and skinny near to starvation. The two women, with curves and flab, held his gaze as he looked them over with curiosity.
“Boss Nox, I have brought you something I think you will enjoy very, very much,” Cricket began with a smile, and he bowed, bringing his arm back to reveal the foursome. Boss Nox’s eyes moved from Cricket’s gesturing to the four strangers standing before him, and his mouth widened in a hideous smile.
“Well, what have we here? New recruits to my kingdom, huh?” Nox said, as he plucked one of the smaller bones from the hubcap closest to him, and he bit a hunk of the meat, tearing it from the bone, and swallowing it quickly. “I suppose you want extra rations for doing what you’re supposed to be doing, don’t you, Cricket?” Nox finished, losing the smile on his face as he turned his attention back to the grungy man with the blade of glass.
“Yes sir, food for my men and myself, and I’d also like to ask for bed and bath as well, for myself,” Cricket said, smiling his best smile.
“Food, bed and bath?” Nox questioned, raising a fat eyebrow, “What do you have that’s worth bed and bath?”
“I have this,” Cricket said, pulling out the slingshot and holding it toward the fat man on the couch. At the sight of it, the eyes of the women grew round, and Nox’s face brightened considerably. For half a second, he ceased to look like a disgusting fat man and almost appeared to be a jovial being.
“Now, that is quite a find, Cricket, quite a find indeed. But, I don’t think it’s worth bed and bath…so you may choose one or the other. And,” Nox turned his attention to another solemn looking man that Mutt, Doc, and the others had hardly noticed was even in the room, “extra rations for the guards, half plate.” The nearly invisible man simply nodded his head and retreated away. Doc noticed that he, too, wore tattered suit clothes, also cut at the sleeves and pant legs to better fit the person now wearing it. The three men standing behind the foursome clapped each other on the shoulders, and with a wave of his hand, Boss Nox dismissed them. Cricket raised his arm and sniffed his underarm, then repeated the motion with his other arm.
“I think I would like the bed, Boss Nox,” Cricket said when Nox turned his attention to him. Nox nodded, and gave another wave, this time with the bone in his hand. A piece of meat that was dangling from the bone flung through the air, and the fat woman closest to where it landed quickly scooped the meat up and gobbled it into her mouth. Nox began to laugh heartily at her as she licked her fingers clean.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic, Violet, I fed you a whole plate’s ration yesterday,” Nox giggled, then turned his attention back to the group standing in front of him. “I understand that you have brought food with you, and I thank you for your contribution to my kingdom.” He spoke directly to Scraps, eyeing her body, studying it.
“We have brought food in hopes of making a barter for-“ Doc began to say.
“No one has given you permission to speak, beast, shut your mouth, before you waste my air!” Nox bellowed, his belly shaking with his anger. Doc immediately closed his mouth, and turned his head down, but kept his eyes on Nox. Boss Nox returned his eyes to Scraps, and he smiled politely at her.
“I have no use for the old one, but you may make a case for the boys, and I might listen,” he resumed, taking another bite from the bone in his hand. Scraps looked first at Gaps, and then to Doc, who nodded to her to say something.
“What do you mean make a case?” she asked, her voice tiny and scared.
“Tell me what they are good for, and I might keep them, is what I mean,” Nox answered, sucking on the bone that was now mostly bare.
“They are good for a lot of things, and so is Doc, he’s smart,” Scraps said, stepping forward from the group. Boss Nox dropped the bone at the other fat girl’s feet, and she snagged the object and immediately suctioned her lips to it. Violet looked on with envy.
“I already have one educated old man, why on Earth would I need two?” Boss Nox asked, his eyebrows rose along his bald forehead.
“Because Doc was around in the world before EMFH, and can tell you great stories about it,” she said, pleading with the only information she had about Doc.
“JEEVES!” Boss Nox suddenly bellowed, his large belly rippling with the yell. Scraps jolted back to the group quickly, and Gaps put his arm around her, pulling her to him. Jeeves quickly moved from the doorway by the stairs to the side of the couch. “Fetch me the Captain,” Boss said in a quieter tone. Jeeves nodded, and quickly whisked away again. “We’ll just see what ‘Doc’ knows about EMFH, when the Captain gets here. In the mean time, make your case for the boys.”
9
Scraps did her best, pleading for her brother, explaining that he was a good hunter, having gotten food for the two of them as long as she could remember. She stated that Mutt was also very fast, and could read, and would be a quick learner for anything that needed to be learned. The fat man on the couch simply raised an eyebrow when looking over the young boys, and there still seemed to be no interest in them on his face. Still, Scraps talked, hoping for a positive sign from Boss Nox. Her hopes began to dwindle when Nox stopped looking at the boys altogether, and studied a dirtied fingernail that seemed yellow and dull. His oily skin oozed sweat, and he wiped a hand under his nose, and then wiped that hand on his pants. She felt disgusted by him, but fought back an urge to shudder.
“Your arguments are very well spirited, my young lady, but I don’t think they are very well thought out. If the boys were as strong, smart, and agile as you suggest they are, then how did they get caught by my guards? And if the boys are so great at taking care of you, then why were you brought here, to me?” Boss Nox asked, looking down his nose at the little girl. He belched out of the side of his mouth, and one of the fat women sitting next to him turned her head away, stifling a laugh.
“I wasn’t brought here to you, we came to this building seeking shelter from the streets,” Scraps stated quickly. She stood up taller to him, finding that her repulsion from him gave her strength to stand up to him. She despised him and wanted to gain a victory over him, to be better than him. Nox scoffed and shoveled another piece of food into his mouth, letting a bit of it dangle from his lips.
“Seeking shelter from the streets? I thought you said these boys took good care of you, I thought you said they provided for you? If they gave you such protection and satisfied your needs, than why leave the streets at all?” Boss slurped up the last morsel of food only to have crumbs and chewed bits of it fly out of his mouth upon his reply. He began to cackle in a throaty, coughing manner, and more food escaped his lips. At first, no one else in the room laughed with him, but with a quickly raised eyebrow, the others joined in, and a fake and joyless laugh escaped their mouths. The only ones who seemed pleased with their laughing were the fat ladies at the fat man’s sides.
“Because of the Sun Sickness, of course. Isn’t that why you are in here, as well?” Scraps quickly jabbed back, her face stern and solid against his fat and lazy one. His laughing, and all the others’, ceased upon her response. He glared at her, his greasy skin dripping in small pools down his body. His eyes, deep and gray, penetrated hers, and she felt his anger coming toward her.
“I am here because I am ruler, and this is my domain. I am Boss Nox!” his blubbery lips spewed. “I am in charge here! And I am here because I choose to be here! You are here because I allow you to be here, and nothing more!” he sat back, folded his arms across his robust chest and stared up at the ceiling. He pursed his lips closed, leaving a small frown planted on his face, and let a loud, hot blast of air escape through his nose. “Where is the Captain?” he finally said, at a lowered volume. He could not stare down at the little girl, who seemed unmoved by his outburst, while everyone else had shrank back away from him.
“Coming, sir,” a weak voice said from a small distance away. Scraps turned in the direction of the voice, and she saw an elderly man, nearly twice as old as Doc appeared, walking with a cane toward them. He had on a brown jacket, with bronze colored buttons going up the front of it, and on his left lapel several different medallions were pinned. His head, large and bald, with liver spots and wrinkles, held a round cap, also brown, with a black bill. His pants were a lighter shade of brown, and his shoes were black, but scuffed. It was a uniform, and it seemed familiar to her, but Doc had to inform her that it was a military uniform, and that the elderly man was a former member of the Army, before it was given up for lost. Doc assumed, by his age and dress, that this man was not only alive during EMFH, but was serving in the military before the worst of it began.
“My new pretty claims that this man remembers the world before EMFH, Captain…what do you say?” Boss Nox gestured toward Doc with a lazy hand, and then quickly returned it folded between his elbow and his fatty ribs. The elderly man, still halfway across the room, paused in his walk and squinted his eyes in Doc’s direction.
“Impossible to say, sir…he looks younger than I am, but looks are deceiving,” the old man said, turning his eyes back toward the floor and continuing his journey toward the couch.
“You see, the Captain says you are deceiving,” Boss Nox bellowed down at Scraps, and again, huffed air out of his nose.
“I’m not deceiving…I don’t know what that means!” Scraps nearly shouted back, straightening her arms at her sides. Doc placed a hand on her shoulder, and gave a soft squeeze. She turned her face toward him, and he could see her anger at being called a name that she didn’t understand.
“It means he thinks you are lying,” Doc said calmly, and Scraps allowed more anger to flow into her face, her cheeks turning as red as Nox’s were fat.
“I am not a liar!! Doc has told us about the world before, and he’s old enough to know because he was a kid when it started!” Scraps returned her shouting at Boss Nox, and Doc admired her tenacious devotion to arguing with the fat man. The Captain approached Doc steadily, and upon standing directly in front of him let out a soft moan as he looked at Doc’s face.
“It’s possible, sir…he is an older man. He’s not as old as I am, but he could have been alive for it,” the old man turned his face away, and stepped two tiny steps toward the couch. He placed his cane directly in front of him, and folded his two wrinkled, worn hands together on top of it. His face wore a steady frown, but to Scraps, he still looked like a pleasant man to talk to, he had a kindness in his eyes, and he was the first person she had seen that seemed truly harmless.
“So, Captain, should he be allowed to stay, or do you find him boring?” Boss Nox asked, relaxing slightly on his cushioned perch.
“He can stay, and we can talk, at least for a little while,” the old man said, his body standing perfectly still, but his hands moving the cane in soft, unsteady shakes. Doc knew the shakes were uncontrollable, and he also knew they were a result of old age, and not the shakes of the sickness. In his mind, he debated whether it was a blessing or a curse for this man to be so old.
“Fine. My pretty and the old man stay,” Nox said, helping himself to another handful of the scraps on the upturned hubcap.
“What about Gaps and Mutt?” Scraps interjected, stepping directly up to the couch. Boss’ eyes widened at her approach, and he shrank back from her as though she were covered in disease. One of the fat ladies next to Boss placed an arm between them and pushed the little girl back a step. Scraps’ eyes never left Nox’s, but she let herself be pushed away from the fat man. As disgusting as she found him to look at, he smelled even worse.
“What about them, pretty? Your argument has not convinced me to let them stay, so they won’t.”
“Then I won’t stay,” Scraps protested, turning toward her brother and stepping back to him. “I’ll go when he goes.”
“Oh my dear,” Nox began to laugh, “they won’t be going anywhere.” His laughing increased, and this time, the others in the room laughed with him, and the laugh sounded genuine. As their voices echoed and increased, Scraps turned to look at her brother, who seemed just as confused as she was, and to Doc, who was quickly glancing around the room.
Scraps saw the old man, who had closed his eyes and turned his face down to his shoes, but she noticed he was shaking his head, and it frightened her. The kind old man did not agree with what they were all laughing at, and she spun looking for a clue. Mutt saw it first though, and his face began to show complete fear. He was staring at the hubcap full of meat scraps, but more specifically, at one of the bones. It was smooth, and white, like any other bone, but it was thick. When Scraps stared at it, too, she saw what Mutt saw. The bone was thicker than any dog or cat bone. She turned her eyes from the bone in the dish, to Mutt’s arm, and saw that they were similar in size. When the pieces fit together in her mind, she screamed and fell to the floor.
“You see, dear…the boys won’t be going anywhere…but they certainly won’t be staying for very long, either!” Boss Nox bellowed even louder, his large belly warbling and shaking, and Scraps began to feel dizzy. As she cried on the floor, Cricket and his guards grabbed the boys by the arms and dragged them from the large room. Scraps fought to hold onto her brother, but she was quickly separated from him by the nearly invisible man in the ill-fitted suit. “Show her to my room,” Boss Nox instructed, “And Captain, you may talk with the old man if you wish, but not here. I don’t care to hear about things before EMFH right now.”
Warning: it's about 17 pages long in Word, so it may take some time to read.