Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) (32 page)

“Look,” I said. “What in the world is that?”

“I have no idea. Let's check it out.”

We walked toward it and found ourselves in an open space, interrupted with small trees that had pushed their way up through that hard gray surface. Most of the space was surrounded by a metal fence that seemed to go on forever. Parts of the fence were missing, leaving large gaps.

Everywhere I looked, there were more fences inside the first, larger one. They were cages and they went on as far as I could see.

“A zoo!” David said. “Imagine that, out here in the wilderness.” He walked through a gap in the large fence and I followed him. “Before the relocations people used to go to zoos, so their kids could see all the animals, and learn about them. My mom and dad took me to a zoo like this lots of times when I was little.”

“Animals?” Micah asked.

“Yes, animals from all over the world.”

“Where are they now?” Micah asked, hopping on one foot and his voice filled with childlike excitement.

“You know the pledge:
I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to the animals of the Earth
. They must have released them all after the relocations. They're long gone and scattered all over the place by now,” David said.

I was dumbfounded by what he said. First, they relocated people and put them behind fences, and then they gave animals their freedom. It was such an evil irony.

“Shouldn't we keep moving?” I asked. “There's nothing here but empty cages. I don't want to be near cages. And we're out in the open where we can be seen.”

“Let's look around quickly. Maybe we can find something we can use. Tools, maybe, or dehydrated food, or more salt. Stuff that doesn't spoil. There had to have been a concession stand somewhere.” His eyes crinkled at their corners, his dark hair dipped over his forehead, and I reached out instinctively to smooth it back.

“Let's make it quick.”

“Right. We'll make it quick.”

We raced by one cage after another with faded labels: lion, giraffe, elephant, monkey. Inside the cages were different kinds of rock formations. They were littered with broken tree branches, bleached bones, and overturned feed bowls. We passed a building named Reptile House and another named Aquarium.

I saw a jumble of massive bleached white bones under a tree and pointed them out to David. “What are those?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. It almost looks like a human hand but it isn't. It's way too big. These must be the bones of a bear paw.” The bones were long and sharp and reminded me of the claws of that black bear that slashed at a tree.

“If they were released, why are there some bones scattered around?”

“Maybe they were old animals and they died. Or maybe another animal attacked and killed them.”

“Would the animals survive outside their cages?”

“Some would, if they were from a similar climate as ours.”

“And if they weren't?”

David just shrugged. He didn't have an answer.

I thought:
So they released animals just for the symbolic act of releasing them, regardless of the consequences?

Micah was running ahead of us, peering into each cage, hoping to see an exotic beast.

“Micah, stay close,” I said.

He reluctantly returned to my side.

“There.” David pointed to an arrow-shaped sign. “Look, it says picnic area.”

We ran to it.

The picnic area had some small, dilapidated round tables and some rotted benches. An abandoned bird's nest rested on one of them. Two small white feathers were stuck to the twigs at the bottom.

There were swing sets and faded plastic animals on coiled springs. Micah climbed on one of the horses that had its front legs extended as if it was racing for its life and its tail flared out behind as though blowing in the wind. Micah made the pretend horse rock back and forth.

“This is the best horse,” Micah said. “The very best horse in the whole world.” He leaned forward and patted its neck. “His name is Micah's Horse.”

“Get off the horse, Micah. We can't waste time.” David lifted Micah off the horse. “Come on. Let's look for food.”

There were some buildings, but most of them were falling apart; bits and pieces of wood were lying helter-skelter. The ones that still stood had the ghosts of words on them.
Lemonade. Cotton Candy. Hot Dogs
.

What, exactly, was a Hot Dog? What were
any
of those things?

We foraged, quickly moving from building to building. Most were empty and dark, with shelves that were broken and strewn on the ground. There were signs that animals had been in the buildings and I could hear the scurrying of smaller creatures in the walls.

David found some unopened bags of things he called pretzels, a box full of little packets of sugar, and another box with several shiny packets of lemonade powder.

He led us to another part of the picnic area, a shelter with a roof but no walls. In it were long tables and benches, uneven on the crumbled, hard surface.

“We'll have a picnic and then get out of here.” He spread all his goodies on a table, then, with a sweep of his hand, brushed some dirt off the rusted metal bench for us to sit. The packets of lemonade powder were hard dried lumps. David banged some of them on the decrepit wooden table to break up the clumps, dropped some in our bottles of water, and added a pinch of sugar to make it sweeter. I shoved the rest of the packets into our bundle. When he opened the bag of pretzels, they didn't look like the pictures on the bags. Instead, they were crumbled bits of dry powdery green. He tossed them aside.

“What's a picnic?” Micah asked.

“Eating food outside. That's a picnic,” David answered.

“Then we always have picnics. We always eat outside since we ran from the Compound,” Micah said, his face flushed with excitement.

“Well, this will be a very, very quick picnic with the lemonade,” David said. “Pretend just for a minute there are lots of families here today, having fun. And we're part of that. We're a family that's having fun. We're a family that's growing.” He gave me a shy smile.

I tried to picture this place filled with families, before the relocations, but I couldn't. I had never seen any place filled with happy people who were free to be together.

We sat in the deserted picnic area, drinking lemonade, a family out for pretend fun in an abandoned zoo.

It was supposed to be fun pretending, but it wasn't. I couldn't help but continue to look around for danger. I knew they were out there somewhere, searching for us.

W
e were done with the lemonade in a couple of minutes. As I was retying our bundles, I noticed a raised wooden platform at one end of the picnic area. “What was that for?” I asked David. It reminded me of the platforms the Authorities used to stand on during the social update meetings in the Compound. Surely, there must have been Authorities here. Why else would there be a stage like this?

“It's an entertainment stage,” David said, walking over and jumping up on the stage. “I can see almost everything from here.”

“Wish we could have entertainment today,” Micah said.

“Not today, buddy. It's time to head out.”

“Is there a latrine around here?” I asked.

“Over there. It's still standing.” He pointed to a square building made of concrete blocks.

“I'll be right back. And then we're out of here.” I shoved our bundles under a table, and headed for the latrine.

Beside the doors to the latrine were two little statues, so short they only came to my hips. There was a boy statue by one door and a girl by the other. Their painted, red-striped clothes were faded; their facial
features paled, eerie and ghostlike. Something had chewed off the little girl's hand. The end of her arm was a ragged, hollow stump.

I pushed hard on the door, and when it swung open, it hit the wall with a dull, hollow thud. Inside the dark space, I brushed cobwebs from my face, and the filmy strands clung to my arms and hands. The floor was covered with slippery green mold. An old papery wasp nest hung high by a narrow window. Under it, on the floor, was piled a sinister black mound of dead wasps. I finished as quickly as I could. The rust-red hinges on the door creaked loudly when I opened it. I cringed. Anybody nearby would certainly have heard it.

The sun was blinding and a relief after that dark place.

But I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

Micah and Elsa were huddled together on a bench. David, his face as pale as a moth's wing, stood frozen on the stage.

A tall man in a mottled uniform stood near them, holding a gun at his side. An Earth Protector?

“No false moves,” the man with the gun said, looking directly at me. His voice was harsh as ice, his face cold as ice. Another smaller man in the same kind of uniform stood beside him; I realized David couldn't see the first man's gun.

I reached for the head of the girl statue to steady myself and she fell forward, her blank, featureless face striking my foot. The stump of her arm pointed up at me. The inside of her arm was black and hollow. Ants scurried over each other where she had stood. Some began to crawl over my foot. I saw each one clearly. I saw the wood grain of the open door beside me, the swirls and cracks in it. I saw everything, every detail, and every color: Micah's freckles, Elsa's round checks, and David's dark hair against his forehead, and round, wet beads of sweat above his eyebrows.

I saw the silvery glint of the gun in the sunlight.

“Walk toward that bench, slowly, then sit.” He pointed to a bench away from my family.

I did as he said. I felt each footstep, each bending of my knees. I sat on the bench, and the wood was rough on my legs.

Elsa was crying. The children were still near the stage.

“Micah, hold Elsa,” I said. I felt my lips move in my stiff face, heard my voice as though from a distance. He scrambled closer to her, pulled her onto his lap. Elsa's crying didn't stop. It sliced through me like a knife.

“Guy, grab the kids,” the tall man said.

“Yes, sir.” Guy walked toward my children. Micah, carrying Elsa, ran to me, away from him.

Elsa was still crying.
Don't cry, baby. Mommy's here
. I held her tightly on my lap.

Micah wrapped his arms around my neck. I could feel his warm breath on my ear.
You're my little prince
.

“Hurry up, Guy.”

Guy ran toward me. I held Elsa tightly, as tightly as any mother ever held a child, but he wrenched her from my arms and sat her on his hip, her blond hair visible above his shoulder. Her arm was hitting the back of his neck, and her pink foot was hanging down and kicking. Guy grabbed Micah's hand and pulled him away from me.

Micah shouted:
No, no, no!

Or was that me shouting?

Elsa screamed.

Or was that me screaming?

Micah was wailing, and his face contorted with fear. He used his little spear to hit the man's leg. The bit of pointed turtle shell fell off the end. He threw it down and it bounced on the ground.

The tall man shouted at me. “You'll regret defying the Authorities,” he said.

“You can't take my children.”

“Your children? What makes you think they're
your
children?”

“They are my children! Don't take them. Please, I'm begging.”

“The children belong to the Authorities. Not to you.”

“Those are my children!” I shouted. “They're mine!”

A cloud passed over the sun and made a shadow that slithered across the ground.

Before I could warn him about the gun, David jumped off the stage. Dust puffed up where he landed. The particles floated up, then drifted down in lazy spirals to the ground. He ran toward me, his hands reaching out for me. His lips were moving, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.
I love you, David.

The man with the gun narrowed his eyes and pinched his lips together. He raised the weapon.

David had reached me when a shot rang out with an explosion of sound that silenced the birds.

The tall Protector grabbed at his own arm. I saw blood on his shirt by his right shoulder. It spread out and seeped down over his chest. He raised his arm, whirled around, and pointed his gun at someone I couldn't see. Someone who was beyond the first set of cages. He fired again and again.

From that direction, another shot rang out. And another. Who was shooting?

“Steven, I'm scared,” Guy said as he cowered and sank to his knees. Micah bravely snatched Elsa from his arms and, holding her protectively, ran to David and me.

Guy ran toward the picnic table. A stray bullet struck him and he fell, sprawled out and motionless.

“Be careful where you're shooting—the children may be there!” a woman shouted. Her voice was familiar.

Above the trees, the tattered flag with the faded image of a large black animal fluttered gently in the breeze. Black birds flew overhead, little dots against the perfect blue sky.

My heartbeat felt like those bird wings in my chest.

The taste of lemonade rose up from my throat into my mouth. Bitter.

The Protector named Steven tried to shoot again, but the hammer
of his gun clicked without results. It was out of ammunition. He fumbled with his left hand through the pack at his feet.

“Rush him!” An unfamiliar man's voice shouted.

I heard the sound of people running.

“Micah, take Elsa into the latrine,” David said. “You'll be safe in there. Don't come out until I tell you. And don't listen to anyone's voice but mine.” Micah quickly understood, and carried his little sister into the latrine. The door screeched behind him when he closed it.

The sound of running was louder, and closer. Steven, fumbling with his left hand, was trying but failing to put more ammunition into his gun. “Guy, get out here. Help me! That's an order!” he shouted. But Guy didn't answer.