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After a mile, Jim stumbled. The rumbles were growing
fainter, with a new sound in the damp air. The child waited till they caught up
and then started, but more slowly.
“Lemme walk,” Benny said, his face dark with
shame. “I can –”
“Maybe, but not . . . fast enough.” Jim choked,
coughing and turned his head to spit. “Jesus, but what is that smell?”
“Met’ane digester, man,” the girl said. “All
o’ the city wastes goes to the digester for recycle. Makes the gas and the gas
keeps the mayor’s butt warmer than a summer breeze.” She eyed Jim. “Us,
too. We taps what we can.”
They came to stainless steel bars that were being
eaten away by the acid in the water. The child slipped through, then Kat. Jim
was lean enough but not with Benny. With some extra sweating and a few choice
words on Benny’s part, they got him through, then Jim squeezed between the bars
casting an admiring look at Kat.
“Some day you’ll have to tell me how you
managed.”
Kat rolled her eyes, but the child muttered a laugh.
“All fat, them things is. Fat, soft, and easy to
squeeze, fool. Don’ worry you none, girl. Few years down here makes them flat
and limp as my ol’ gamma’s titties.”
Kat smacked Jim for grinning and Benny for winking.
They inched along a catwalk over a black, tarry
swirling pool that had them all gagging and beating at swarms of flies. The
child found a flight of steps and took them down to ground level, then trotted
around the vat.
“Don’ you all lollygag none." She coughed and spit at a dark lump in the water. “Sewer gas, it kills you quick.”
When she came to another opening, she grabbed the
handle and jerked. Kat added her weight, then Jim. The handle rasped with
corrosion but moved. The child shoved, and the hinges groaned, the door sliding
open.
They went in and dropped. The child was up in a flash
and closing the door. The reek of gas was less here but still fogged the mind
and slowed them.
“Come.” She pushed along the wall and then into a
vast room with a gleaming silver cylinder that reached to the ceiling a hundred
feet overhead and far off into the distance.
“Be quiet, be cool. Other gang turf here. Sometimes
we fights, sometimes we not.”
They moved out stumbling with a dark weariness that
stole over them.
Sleep. Lay still
a moment and rest. The gas grew thicker and they grew slower.
A man moved out from the shadows. He was armed with a
crossbow and hard plastic knife.
“Halt.”
“Halt my foot. 'Tis me, Ramie Jane Doe, from
Carter Street.”
“Weintraub’s? I ain’t no fool, girl. Why you
down here?” The man strained his eyes looking passed them.
Voice tinged with contempt, Ramie said, “You ain’t
got no ears, man? We been raided again.”
The man gave a grunt of contempt.
Ramie snapped, “Feds. Might be right behind us. You
stand jawing whilest they drawing you name and number on a piece o’ paper to
record you death.”
The man frowned, fading back into the shadows.
“Pass and don’t dare stop till you see the light
o’ day.”
They were hailed twice more, before coming to an
ancient set of stone steps. Ramie led them up that and into the ruins of a
synagogue.
“Feds take them away, but this place was abandoned
long since before. Like, when the crack hits the streets, things go down for
them bad. Two years ago feds come an’ give the numbers, then takes ‘em
away.”
She bared her arm. Barely visible in the morning light
was a series of numbers and letters.
“Grampa, he the last but for me and my sibs. Ain’t
no more in Philly. Not living, no how.”
Kat sagged onto some rubble. A flock of pigeons
fluttered from the rafters. In the distance a rooster crowed and was answered by
a barking dog.
“How long now?”
Ramie’s head moved towards a wall covered with
rubble. “By that. A hidey-hole.” She looked over Kat, then at an angry
Benny. “Mister, can you crawl?”
“What?” Guilt in his eyes was masked by a sullen,
embarrassed anger. “Yes.”
“Rest a bit. Put that man down, mister,” she said,
giving Jim’s arm a shake. “He gots legs and wants t’ use ‘em.”
Jim lowered Benny to the floor. Benny stiffened for a
moment, then straightened holding to a splintered beam.
The raider’s camp lay in ruins. Mike picked his way
through. A lot of work went on here to create a cave of sorts. What remained of
the area surrounding it was carefully plotted gardens and fruit trees, not the
half wild lands of the savages that lived a mile beyond.
Corpses and parts of bodies lay everywhere. Men, for
the most part, but a few women. All armed, all deadly. Raiders didn’t fight to
hold ground. They had held off the law until the rest escaped.
A thin rod in his hands, Mike pointed it at a rag torn
to threads in the last, final assault.
The watch face on his wrist lit up. Grey, Benjamin Wya.
A small pain crept from Mike’s stomach.
“Damn you,” he said, his voice soft with a hate
that had grown old and cherished.
The way was under more trash. Rats growled, snarling
at them but racing away.
“They fears us ‘cause ever’thing eat them,”
Ramie said, shrugging away Kat’s worry.
“And they carry every disease known to humanity.”
“That true, ma’am.” Ramie pushed open a door
cracked with age and the weather.
Benny stared at it for a moment. He pulled himself to
his knees to smile at the artistry and care of the working.
“Pretty, no?” Ramie waited, smiling. “But I gots
to close it else the rats comes in.”
Benny crawled in, and she shoved the door shut. On this
side was a plain iron sheet. When he turned, he stared in awe at the walls of
books and the people sprawled on the floor or worn furnishings, reading.
“Gramps says this was the library for this
neighborhood. When the crap-heads take over the state, they old timers hide the
books. Year later, they cops come and take what they find.” Her voice
thickened with glee. “Was all old books from yard sales and stuff. Nothing of
the good. Novels and New Math.”
Benny looked at the books nearest him. Some were in
English or Spanish, others in alphabets that might be Hebrew or Moslem.
He took a slow step, grabbed the rails of the shelves,
and looked again. His cousin, Toddy, would go nutty in this place. They would
have to force feed the guy because he would starve before stopping to eat.
“No time,” Ramie whispered. “Not if you got
an implant.”
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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