Robinson Crusoe 2244 (14 page)

The Old Man refused to leave the haven that day. He knew what was coming. Sometime around noon, the day turned chilly and the animals retreated like fog. It seemed they knew what was coming too.

The full moon rose just before sunset, but by then they had stockpiled enough supplies for the night. The late afternoon moved agonizingly slow. When Robinson could take it no longer, he built a fire and started cooking raccoon meat on a spit. The meat was dark and gamey, but when he cooked it properly, it was delicious. The secret was to strip away every speck of fat. He was just encouraging the Old Man to eat when the drums started.

A month before, those deep, booming strikes had rumbled like thunder. Now they sounded like the world was splitting in two. Surprisingly, the Old Man didn’t cower or bury his head beneath his blankets. He simply closed his eyes and started to hum. The tone was too soft to decipher a melody, but it ran counter to the beat of the drums, as if by singing his own song, he might beat back the one that haunted him.

While this battle raged, another sparked inside. Part of Robinson wanted to stay there in the security of the haven and support the man who had saved his life. But another part of him needed to go outside to see what mysterious circumstances surrounded those drums.

Turns passed. The Old Man put up a valiant fight, but the moment Robinson stood, he knew the battle was lost. Robinson expected to be scolded or held back, but he had to do this for himself. The Old Man’s expression seemed resigned, making clear more loudly than words what he thought about youth and curious minds in general.

When Robinson had donned his darkest clothes and started for the stairs, the Old Man called out, offering his staff. Robinson knew his chances of needing it were great but taking it felt like a violation. Instead, he said simply, “I’ll be back.”

Outside, night had come, and with it, renders. The parade of flesh moved down Independence Street but also split around the library, like river water around a rock. Robinson slipped out through the western exit overlooking a wedge of wild grass through which he could crawl.

He worked his way toward a narrow ravine split from a vale of concrete and quietly slid down, careful to watch his footing at the crevasse’s edge. The rift itself was three meters deep and dark enough for him to go unnoticed as he looped the arcade. After a few short steps, he heard a pack of renders pass. Mercifully, they never saw him.

The full moon filled the streets with shadows, which he used to slip to the northern side of Constitution Avenue. There, he snuck through the foliage of several large buildings. As he neared the last one, he saw the glow of fires illuminating the top of the monolith and the park where the renders were swarming. Unfortunately, his view was blocked. He needed to cross the street to find a building with the perfect vantage point.

The stroke of drums came faster and harder, each pounding, rhythmic call answered by a thousand tortured voices. But then the most horrific sound of all rose above the din—a single human scream. The roar that followed was an explosion of bloodlust and fury. Robinson knew he should go back, but it was too late.

The roadway was momentarily clear when he stepped out of the shadows and ran hard for a carriage shell in the center of the street, hunkering down seconds before a four-legged render passed. He was halfway across the street when he slipped and fell.

The fall wasn’t the bad part. It was that he had crashed into a faded blue, metal box that crumpled under his weight. The noise stalled the four-legged render in its path. The creature turned, its nose palpitating. When it began plodding back, Robinson knew it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. His luck went from bad to worse as four more mutated creatures appeared on the grass in front of the building.

Caught between hammer and anvil, Robinson was about to choose which evil might be the lesser when he heard a snarl behind him. He spun to find the dog. It barked at the nearest render, which quickly changed course. The others fell in behind it. The dog sprinted several yards away only to turn back and taunt them again.

Robinson stayed low as he ran for the building. It bore a faded sign that he deciphered as the Museum of American History. Part of its front had collapsed, revealing a number of stone columns, canted and broken. Robinson scaled the tenuous path to an outcropping over a high window. When he looked back, he saw the dog still circling, leading the renders farther away.

At the southeastern corner of the building, Robinson was afforded his first view of the scene below. It was bedlam. The large wooden ship had anchored in the basin, its blood red sail now hanging lax. Its black sigil of a burning dagger shone ominously in the moonlight.

Near the water’s edge stood a dozen bronze-skinned savages wearing little more than breeches and jewelry made of shells that shook and rattled as they pounded on the towering drums.

In the foreground were several large fires, their flames billowing into the sky as more savages patrolled the perimeter of the monolith, using torches to incite the renders but also to keep them at bay. When one got too close, a savage would raise a pouch of liquid to his mouth and spit a geyser of fire at it. The immolating creature would shriek as it spun through its kind, alighting any that failed to get out of its way. Only when the creature collapsed and the flames died down did the pack descend to feed on its flesh, eliciting raucous laughter from the cluster of human tormenters.

Among the savages, one towered above all the others. He was a colossal man and wore a feathered headdress over a face painted black and white to resemble a human skull. He held a large, curved blade that he swung with sadistic glee, indiscriminately striking down renders whenever the desire touched him. With each blow, his elaborate breastplate of shells rattled and shook. It was only when he turned and Robinson saw nubs on his vestments that he realized they were not shells, but human bones.

Abruptly, Savage Chief raised his sword and bellowed. The drumbeat fell to a single, slowly paced strike. Robinson’s heart thrummed in unison as a savage ran to the ship. There, a half dozen bamboo cages were perched just inside the waterline, each containing a writhing mass of terrified captives. The savage opened the cage and ordered a captive out. When he refused, the savage killed him with a dagger. The other captives wailed as his body fell and more savages raced to claim it. They dragged it toward the arcade and threw it into the mass of renders. It was feasted upon in seconds.

The smell of blood only frenzied the pack as a second prisoner was dragged out, his will broken. Behind him followed two more, a man and a woman. Robinson felt bile rising in his throat. He was sure he was going to vomit, but he couldn’t turn away.

Savage Chief ordered the three prisoners chained to the monolith. The nearest never raised his head. His irons were connected to one wrist and he slunk down against the concrete, unwilling to face the death that was coming for him.

In the center, the woman wailed, her tears visible even from afar, but she remained standing, her head turned to see what was coming.

The man at the far end had remained silent, but his head never bowed. His foot was being shackled to the monolith when he suddenly lashed out and kneed one of the savages in the face. A second savage drew his blade and cut him across the chest, but the man disarmed him with shocking speed and hacked the savage twice, once taking an ear, the second cutting him across the mouth. The savage fell in a heap. Then Savage Chief came over. Robinson assumed he was going to help the injured man, but he mocked him and killed him instead. The other savages roared.

Chief then turned to taunt the captive but found no fear in him. He made a joke and his men laughed. His head was turned for a fraction of a second when the prisoner flung the dagger at him. It should have been a lethal strike, but Chief spun with extraordinary speed and batted the blade away.

Chief mocked the man again, but rather than kill him, he ordered the release of three renders. Then he picked up three weapons—the dagger, an axe, and a sword—and tossed them at the feet of the captives.

The drumbeat picked up slowly. Bloodlust was in the air. Robinson saw Savage Chief’s chest swell with anticipation, his eyes big, golden orbs in the flames.

The sobbing female grabbed the dagger, her hands shaking as the renders moved in. The third captive yelled at her and motioned to the weapons at her feet. She kicked the blade to him just in time. The first render swept down upon the stooped man, his cry quickly reduced to a gurgle as the beast tore into him. The savages howled with delight as he died. The drums let off a trill blast before resuming their sacrificial pace.

The female captive swung her dagger erratically while the fierce man hacked at the iron around his ankle with the sword but to no avail. When a render charged, he met the attack with one swift slash. The render stumbled and fell.

With the female captive distracted, her render attacked. She tried to raise the dagger, but the creature’s massive maw had already locked onto her face. The first render joined in. The fierce man screamed, swinging his blade wildly, but after a few seconds, the woman’s body slowed and then ceased to move altogether.

Once again, the drums trilled in recognition of death. The other prisoners wailed. Robinson turned and vomited. He wanted to look away. He wanted to flee, but he knew those images would be there in the dark for a long time to come. He was still hoping the fierce man might beat them back with the fire inside him.

The two remaining renders surrounded their final prize, but he stood tall, sword ready. When their attack came, the blade hit the first render under the arm, but almost simultaneously, the second one sank its teeth into the man’s neck. He thrashed and continued to fight, but eventually the blade dropped from his hand and he died.

The savages erupted as the drumbeats rose and fell. The yowling of renders drowned out the cry of the prisoners that were soon to follow. For Robinson’s part, he could watch no more. All of his life he had been told the world was full of horrors, but he had never understood that the worst of them was man. He had gone there of his own volition but would leave some part of himself behind forever. He tried to wipe the events from his mind, but two things refused to go. The first was the bravery with which the fierce man had hacked at his bonds before he’d died.

The second was the inverted V scar burned deep into the flesh of his upper arm.

When he returned to the haven the following morning, the Old Man was gone. The only thing he had left behind was the knife Robinson had spent months coveting. Maybe he was ashamed of how he had survived his captivity or how he’d lived afterward. Maybe he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the change he was sure to find in the boy’s eyes. Bearing witness to evil scarred a soul too, after all.

But the days rolled forward and Robinson pushed on, sticking to the routine he’d been taught. He rose early, hunting birds or insects for bait. He checked traps for animals, killing ones that were edible, drowning those with blight. The traps that were damaged, he repaired. The empty ones, he moved. All the while he avoided darkened doorways or any place a render might hide. He never ventured into residences.

Three days after the night of the full moon, he went back to the monolith. The grass around the obelisk was burned and the cement was stained with blood. He saw no bones or other refuse. The renders had done their job well.

He came to a decision then. He would not live a life of fear. He began mapping out the city. From the books he’d scavenged, he learned it was called Washington, named after one of the original founders of this country. It had once been the seat of power and had led the free world in many things.

Beyond the realm of towers and glass, the signs of renders lessened. Robinson didn’t know if they merely lived where food was more abundant or if they simply lingered where their human ancestors had fallen.

Upriver, he found animals and plants of unknown biological classifications and technologies of indiscernible purposes. To the southwest, he stumbled upon a field of gravestones larger than the whole of New London.

Still he could never quite leave the city. He knew the Old Man would never return, but if he did, he wanted to be where he could find him.

And yet loneliness encroached upon his every waking act. His dreams were haunted by the notion of becoming injured and left to die alone, like being dragged down into some dark abyss, or falling from a high building, or drowning in rainwater as it gushed down the stairwell and flooded the haven.

He went out less often, blaming it first on the rain, and then on the traps when they failed to provide food. He sequestered himself in the library, reading books on history and science, in awe of the gifts the One People had been deprived of and horrified by the plagues they had been spared. Wallowing in memories of Tessa only made those fears more acute. Whenever he passed a reflective surface, he saw how gaunt he had become. Something had to change and soon, but he didn’t know what or how. He searched for flyer technology to help return him home, but there was none to be had. Gravity displacement hadn’t been invented until well after this republic had fallen.