WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (13 page)

            “Maze!” Sid cries as he reaches me. I shush him violently, trying to get him to realize. And then, in another moment, he turns and sees, and we both watch the red face, waiting to see if it will move again. It locks still, but then, in slow but deliberate movements, it starts to walk forward. Everything quiets except for the footfalls, and even from fifty feet away I get a sense of just how big the antler man is—that he dwarfs even Sid’s frame.

            When I look back up at Maze, she’s gone. Completely vanished again. I don’t stop to wonder if she’s hiding or running to help us, because all I can do is glance back to where the sound of knocking cages tells me the antler man has turned behind a corner of junk and disappeared. I can’t even see the tips of his horns anymore and there’s nothing but the rustle of footsteps. Sid steps back, heading toward the closest tower of crates to hide. I follow after him without thinking. When we’re behind the metal shells and rubble, he tells me to get down, be quiet, and wait.

            I whisper to him my brightest idea—that we have to stab it together. If we both go in, we can take it down. He looks at me like it’s a horrible idea.

            “Won’t work,” he says.

            When I ask why, all he does is look away, searching for a sign of red skin. Finally, he says that Nefandus skin is armor.

            “
Nefandus
?” I whisper back, straining at the same time to hear the rustling of the monster. This time Sid doesn’t reply at all and instead the sound of footsteps come. There is no more rustling, just the steps, growing louder. Then they’re blurred into the creaking of crate hinges in a gust of wind.

            “He’s behind there,” Sid whispers, pointing to a wall of rust.

            “What the hell do we do if we can’t stab him?”  

            “Hope he can’t find us.”

            And then, Sid slants his eyes at me and puts his finger to his mouth, warning me not to say another word. We wait forever for the wind to die down, and just when I think the footsteps are audible somewhere in the rattle, and getting more distant, and I start to think the red man has moved on, maybe out of the scrap yard, I hear a new noise. The sound of shifting debris. Without a sound, Sid rises up to peak through the rubble, and then he sits back down and mutters
Maze.

The name triggers me and I have to stand up and look for myself. Sid’s hand immediately grabs me so that I won’t get up, but I do it too fast, and all at once I see the open range of the scrap yard again. But there’s no sign of Maze at all, and instead, when I send my eyes combing back and forth to catch sight of her, all I see is the antlered monstrosity. His eyes pointed straight at me, as if he’d been waiting all this time, knew our exact location, was baiting us. Before I duck down from fear, paralyzed momentarily with the thought that he’ll suddenly charge at us, I catch a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye—hopping her way down a steep granite sidewall, wildly descending right toward the antlers. When I squat down after Sid hits my leg, and I know that I’m concealed again behind the metal, the rumble starts. Right away I know what it is, there’s no mistaking it—the thing has started to run. In my mind I see its enormous body thumping the ground, each step beating thunder, each step getting closer, louder. Sid looks at me and tells me we need to split up. That it might confuse it if we run in opposite directions. And then, in another instant, he’s gone, just like that, up and sprinting away from the shore before I can agree, running toward the far end of the junk yard, weaving in and out of the rotting stacks.

            The pounding sound increases, so close now that I know if I stand up, he’ll be right on top of me. But something in me tells me I have to do it—that if I stay still, then I really have no shot. Without looking back out, I watch my feet and the ground, unwilling to see the antlers again, and sprint as hard as I can. The sound of the giant fades behind me and all I see is iron flake dust kicking up. My side smacks into the side of a high stack I didn’t see and searing pain shoots along my hip but I keep going. When I finally throw my head around midstride, to see where the red man is, I hear the scream. It’s Sid.

            I spin and run backwards, watching Sid try to fight the monster. And then I see Maze and my gut sinks as she launches right into the fray. For all the safe distance I’ve gained, I throw it away in an instant at the sight of her and turn back. My body rends itself in a furious charge toward them. Complete madness courses through me. It’s only when I make it back to our hiding spot that I can tell what’s happened.

At first, I think the red beast is hurt, because it’s back is hunched over, and I can’t see its head anymore. It leans over, like it might fall, right in front of Sid. I realize he must have hit it with a fatal blow, because his eyes open wide, like he’s triumphed, and then he looks right at me. But then I know how wrong I am—it’s not triumph, but a pleading look of desperation. Like he wants me to help him, and it’s not the red monster that’s hurt but him. Maze cuts into the path, and she’s all I can see, charging right up to the beast’s backside. And that’s when it happens.

            The enormous red mound of back muscle rises, as if in anticipation of her arrival, like it heard every step coming up from behind. The red man reaches full height and then, in a swinging turn, slams Maze off her feet. I see a sliding glint of silver—her knife—fling off into the dust of the scrap yard, and then she tumbles away into a slanted stack of rusty crates. The rattle deafens everything else, the stack collapses and she disappears, and then there is nothing but a long moan. And when my eyes can’t follow Maze anymore, and all I can see is the cloud of red flakes from the earth, I take in the gore. It’s Sid. His stomach is impaled in two places, the antlers spearing straight through, splaying out. The pleading look in his eyes is gone the moment I see his face again, and then the monster, somehow carrying the full weight of Sid on his head, turns to face me. Sid’s gored belly drips bright red down the antlers, blending into the dark dye of the monster’s face. Its stark white eyes, cold and wide open, fix on me, and I stop running. Everything in the world freezes. My hands attempt to position my knife into a stabbing position, as if I’ll have a shot. I wait for the charge, for the thing to take action and destroy me like it’s done to Maze and Sid, but nothing happens, and then there’s a call. When I look up to the rim to where it came from, overlooking the scrap yard, I see the source—one of the thin red demons, wood and metal spear in its hand. He calls the strange noise down to us again, and then another one appears next to him. More and more start to appear, as if the antler monster has somehow silently beckoned them all to return. And then, when more and more of them appear, it makes sense to me—they never intended to move on from the scrap yard. It was all just to scout ahead.

Renewed thumping distracts me from the ridge above—when I lower my eyes, knife almost slipping from my hand from sweat, I see Sid move. Alive still, writhing, and trying to work himself free from the antlers he’s tacked to. But he can’t, and the bloody tips that protrude through his body suddenly lower, pointing right at me. The hulk runs forward so that all I can see is Sid’s bloody back bobbing up and down, concealing the enormity of the beast driving it. At the last second I feel my muscles pull, snapping me from certain death. I dive hard behind one of the biggest stacks of junk. As soon as I’m away, I hear the bang as the giant rams right into the stack. A quick pain flashes through my foot, and then lights on fire, snaking up my whole body, until in the next moment it all goes numb. But there I see something—bright white eyes, on the ground for just a moment. It all happens in slow motion—Sid rolling away over the dirt, leaving a trail of red grime where he’s managed to unhook himself from the horns. And the monster doesn’t move, recklessly stunned by the iron rack in its blind chase for me. And when I look at it, downed right next to me, all I see are the whites of its eyes, closing and opening to the sound of grunts, as it furiously tries to hoist the heavy blocks that fell on its back.

            The blocks start to slide away as it gathers its strength again, but before it can escape completely, and its eyes find me for a killing blow, I thrust my knife forward. The hit is direct, and the knife glances along tough skin, sliding as if against metal, but landing in the softness of an eye—the white erupts into red and I look away, but I still twist and dig and twist and dig until the thing roars something of the worst kind of pain, a shriek that seizes up my whole body.

            From the pain the beast starts bucking and the knife slips out of my grip. A block crashes just by my leg, almost crushing me. And then, I see the antlers rise. There is only the full height of the red man, his one eye closed and the other bleeding, the handle of my knife still sticking out. In an agonizing whine, the thing raises its hands and rips out the knife. I try to edge my way back, put some weight on my foot, but it still won’t cooperate with me. I push and push, dust rising around me as I wait for the thing to open its good eye and find me. The sound of a hundred footsteps clap all around us and I know—the rest of them have found us. They’ve seen it all and now they’ve come to finish the job even if the antlers can’t. But something catches my eyes near the giant’s red legs, and when I look close, thinking I’ll see the slithering remains of Sid, his last surge of life, I see Maze instead. Quickly getting down, the flashing silver of her knife shining in her hand, I see her stab. A quick shot right behind its knee. A new wail erupts, louder than before. And then, in one tremendous earthquake, the red hulk topples into the spilled metal blocks and bounces off of them. One of his antlers pops, snapping from the top of his head. The next thing I know, I see the dark lines of Maze’s eyes. I hear her voice. She’s panicking.

            “Get up!” she yells. She wraps my hand around hers and pulls me to my feet. We slouch away to a nearby pillar of trash. We drop and sit for a moment, because it’s too clear—the spear-wielding marchers are all around us now. That’s when we see Sid. Pulling himself, right through the middle of the open path, out toward the shoreline, where his boat must be. A last crippled attempt to make it out alive.  

            “No, no, no, no...” Maze mutters, her voice too loud. And then, when a few of the red marchers see him crawling out, they draw around him, so many that we can’t see him on the ground at all anymore. Hollering voices fill the scrap yard with mad chanting. They all look down at him, walking in circles around, until Maze steps forward, like she’s going to run in to save him. I hang my full weight on her, hoping I can stop her.

            “He’s gone,” I say. Whether or not it’s the truth that stops her, I don’t know. But she doesn’t even try to break my hold, and we watch the frenzy. And then, we hear Sid’s cries as the spears start to drop down into the circle, repeatedly stabbing into him. The terror lasts only a minute, and just that fast, almost impossibly fast, they scramble away from Sid, leaving him lying in the middle of the path. A cloud of dust particles hovers over him, and then, there’s the giant again—his antlered body hoisted up by several red marchers, being carried away. The footsteps fade, and then, it’s like they’ve left the scrap yard again. Every last one of them. Before it’s safe, and before I want to move at all, Maze pushes me against one of the heavier crates so I won’t fall and runs out. When I regain my footing and limp over to her, he’s still alive. He’s even talking to her.

    “Help me up,” he says. I see the carnage immediately. The stab wounds, many of them, but only centered on his hands and feet. And I know, there’s no way he’ll ever be able to use them again, even if he survives. But it doesn’t matter, because through his moans for help, I see his stomach, and the red pockets where the antlers were, soaking through his shirt.

Maze wraps him in her arms, and then tries to lift him but it’s impossible. She tells me to help, and together we manage to drag him along the ground a bit toward the shoreline. Every few feet we put him back down to rest. His moans suddenly stop. He just starts mumbling incoherently about the boat and something about the Resistance. The Ark comes out of his mouth, but Maze doesn’t say anything back to him and neither do I. We just keep pulling his body. Finally, we reach the last piles of rubble and pass onto the rocky steps of the coast. But it’s one long descending slope of fractured rocks, and I know right away there’s no way we’ll be able to get him down to the water. From our position I see his boat bobbing in the surf and the forbidden block of metal attached to the back—a motor.

            Maze signals for me to put him down, and together we lay his body on a flat crust of rock. Suddenly, he starts to make sense. Maze leans over him, down and close, and I just look away. When I turn for a moment, trying to understand what they’re whispering, I see her kiss him. And then, he starts to talk about the Nefandus. He curses something, and says something about bad luck. All of the sudden, the talking dies. I watch Maze rouse him, telling him to say where we need to go. It’s like that quickly she’s accepted it—that he’s going to die—and now, it’s just a matter of getting information. But she starts to cry. Soft and awful sobs that make me know it’s more than that, and I step away.

As he chokes out mangled phrases and she leans into his chest, taking in his last waking minutes, I turn from them. I can’t watch anymore, and instead I scan the junkyard. But there’s no sign of the red marchers. Not hiding up on the ridge or poking out from the edges of the forest or anywhere in the scrap lanes. I’m convinced they’ve gone for good now, transporting their antlered monster. And then I twist to face the writhing foam of the surf as it whips against the rocks and splashes high. An emotion rises suddenly in me. Anger. All of it directed at myself.

            How could I have so badly misread the signs? All of her playful touches. The way she flung her hair back and looked into my eyes and smiled. The closeness of her and how I always seemed to make her so happy. But I know—hearing her crying for him—it was all an illusion. Something I created myself. And the warnings of my friends—
stay away from her
—sound inside of my head.