Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(65)

The ground levels off. Ahead they can see the mud road twisting forward into the forest. Eli pauses at the top of the hill.

Richard puts his hand on Eli’s shoulder.

Keep walking, he says.

Eli’s boots are heavy; clumps of earth cake on top of his feet, weighing him down. They walk again, making slow time, lifting their legs high to avoid puddles and sticks. Eli’s legs ache from the effort.

I’m hungry, he says.

We can’t stop, Richard says.

Eli takes a step over a puddle but loses his footing and slides into the blackwater. His leg sinks in up to his knee, his boot fills with water. He struggles.

Richard! he cries. Two strong hands are under his armpits, lifting him up. He is free. The air is cool around his foot.

The blackwater puddle lies flat. His boot is lost, devoured.

Richard helps Eli pull off his sock and roll his pant leg up to avoid the wet. He takes off his backpack and straps it frontwards over his chest. He lifts the boy up onto his back. Eli remembers when he was little and Richard would piggy-back him across town. Richard used to be so big. But Eli feels his limbs are longer now. His legs dangle awkwardly at Richard’s hips. He wonders if he will ever be as big as Richard.

Richard walks and Eli closes his eyes. He dreams of the great, brown wave. He wants to reach his hands toward it, run it through his fingers, slipping warm past his hands. He wants to know how the brownwater feels.

He wakes up. It’s raining again. His other boot is gone, slipped off and lost somewhere along the road.

They stop to rest and Eli gets down from Richard’s back. He balances on his bare foot, holding onto Richard for support. He pulls off his other sock, puts it in his pocket and settles his foot into the mud.

Richard and the boy squat under a tree. They are on the edge of the dead woods. Nothing grows there, Richard told Eli once. It’s all old growth, cracking and falling over. Spiked branches reach high over their heads, doing little to shelter them from the rain.

Richard bends down and laces his hands together, stitching his fingers up in a tight cup. He dips his hands into the blackwater and scoops it up. The puddle ripples softly. He lifts his hands to his mouth and then the boy’s. It tastes like rotting wood.

Eli is tired, his feet are cold. The grey glow is low in the west. Richard stands and looks into the woods. It is dark, a tangle of sticks and trunks.

We should find a place for tonight, he says.

Eli stands. His feet are numb beneath him. He stamps them, trying to work feeling back into his toes.

We gotta try, Richard says. He leads Eli off the road into the trees.

They move under branches. Every dead tree has been bent by wind and water. Eli struggles to keep up with Richard. His back keeps disappearing behind black tree trunks, rocks slick blue with moss. Eli trips on roots, wet fingers coming out of the ground, reaching for him. He scrambles away.

They pick their way through the trees until they come across a clearing. There is a rusted car frame and a trail leading off farther into the woods. A small building, just a hut, sits down the trail. They can see it through the sparse trees.

Richard crosses the clearing to the car. He searches the inside, checking under the rotting seats. He opens the trunk and waves Eli over.

Here, he says.

Eli joins Richard and looks into the car. There are a couple of zip packets. Beans and beets.

Richard looks up at the hut, then back at Eli.

Stay and guard the food, he says. I’m going to look quick.

Eli is scared. He reaches for his brother. But Richard squats down and puts his hands on the boy’s shoulders.

Eli, Richard says, we need more food. You see? I’ll be right back.

Eli stares at Richard, he tries not to cry.

Wait here, Richard says. He gets up and walks down the path toward the hut. Eli is alone in the clearing. He thinks of the wave. He wonders if it came this far. Wonders if this place was drowned out in brownwater like the ground houses. Eli scrambles onto the hood of the car, his muddy feet sliding on the metal. He wants to get a better view through the trees but Richard has gone inside, into the dark.

Eli shivers and pulls his slip jacket tighter around him. He is alone. It is quiet, like it was in the ground houses. He thinks of the man in the doorway. He doesn’t want to be alone.

There is a great silence, stretching long, upwards into the sky over the clearing. There are no sounds of children or cars or grown-ups. No steam-wail of a factory smokestack or roar as the river surges around the great bend by the slumtop. Eli watches the trees.

There is a movement. Richard is walking back down the path, carrying something small in his hands. He crosses the clearing and smiles at the boy. He sets a pair of shoes down on the hood of the car. They are grey rubber.

You can wear these, Richard says. And there’s food over there. We’ll stay for tonight.

Eli puts the shoes on. They are too big. He jumps off the hood of the car onto the ground and looks down at his feet, the hollow shoe-space around his ankles. His feet will move around in them, but they will be fine. Maybe he will grow into them.

Richard starts walking toward the path. He turns to Eli and calls out to him.

The boy takes a step in his new shoes and follows his brother across the clearing.





RUPTURES


Jamie Mason

for Syd Ward

This is how we live now. The sector of the city that’s still cohesive is under martial law; the event horizon where the pavement disintegrates and drops into oblivion is heavily guarded. You can get within a mile or two of the misty, yawning canyon of the Abyss but the army has cordoned off the rest. They’re enforcing a strict curfew on everyone except us.