Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) (13 page)

We continue down the long, dark road until we reach what looks like a town.  Pale moonlight blanches everything in its wake, but even without the moon, I doubt anything could be done to help the landscape before me. 

Rows of brick and wood structures appear and line both sides of the street.  I remember learning about places such as the one before me.  My dad told me they were shops.  Humans once owned places of business that would sell goods and services in exchange for stuff called
money
.  Money once controlled the world.  It is hard for me to imagine paper and coins controlling anything.  Especially since those who’d had plenty of it died just the same as those who had not.  Their money had only delayed the inevitable slightly, and bought them suffering at the hands of abominations along with it.  Money fell to extinction along with humanity.  As far as I know, it holds no value at all.  And the places where it changed hands, the shops, bear the appearance of its elimination. 

Broken windows
stare at us like lifeless eyes as we pass, and torn awnings flap quietly in the faint breeze that stirs.  Piles of debris are clustered as far as I can see—stones, rocks, bricks and other material I cannot identify.  Heaps of rubbish arise from the pavement and look like mangled metal corpses.  They are covered in a lumpy, dry-looking substance the color of dried blood.  They resemble the truck that passed when the Urthmen marched by earlier, but without wheels or the ability to move.

“This place gives me the creeps,” June says and shivers.  She wraps one arm across her body.

“Me, too,” Riley says.  “What is all this stuff?  Where are we?”

“I heard stories about places like this.  I think this used to be a town,” Will tells the girls. 

“It’s really scary, this town place.” Riley comments. 

“I know
, it is,” Will agrees and drapes his arm across her shoulders reassuringly.

“Do you think Urthmen live here?” Oliver asks.  I hear the edge in his voice, the nervousness.  I feel it too.  I wondered the sam
e thing.  But I suppose if Urthmen did live here, we’d be dead already. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Will answers.  “These buildings are just shells.  It doesn’t look like
anyone or anything has been here for ages.” 

The metal heaps and storefronts are covered in a sooty layer of grime. 
The forest was never filmed in such muck.  All that I am seeing is foreign and gloomy.

“Have you ever seen a place
like this?” I ask Will.

“Uh-uh.  I’ve only seen the forest,” Will shakes his head and says. 

“Me, too,” I say.  “This place is awful,” I add.  “It’s so depressing.”

“I know,” he
agrees as we come to a turnoff.

“What do you think?  Should we go down this road?” I ask Will.

“Yes,” he surprises me by having a finite opinion.  “Anything to get away from these buildings and all the other junk around here,” he adds and curls his upper lip in disgust. 

We make our way down a new street.  I immed
iately notice that the layout is different.  Houses, not buildings, line the lane. 

“Oh wow! Houses,” I hear Will whisper excitedly.  “I’ve always wanted to see one of these.  Haven’t you?” he does not wait for my response and continues.  “My parents used t
o tell us stories they’d heard.”  His head swivels as he looks from one house to the next.  Childlike awe replaces his guarded expression.  “All the things humans had, stuff like rooms and furniture, running water and tubs they bathed in, and lights!  Lights inside the walls! Can you imagine!” he says and even in the dim light provided by the moon, I can see his translucent blue-green eyes dance with wonder.

My stomach feels as if millions of bubbles are bouncing and bursting.  His excitement is infectious.  I feel my own
interest pique.

“Haven’t you dreamed about what they look like inside?” he asks me

“Yes, I have,” I admit and the vision I imagined since I was a child reappears in my mind’s eye.  Soft, plush material beneath my bare feet,
carpeting
, I believe my father called it, and walls that shut out the cold and heat just as the cave did, only the hard, coldness of it is missing, replaced, instead, with comfort and warmth.  I always picture soft colors similar to the forest only less vibrant, more soothing.  I envision all the luxuries I heard about: a soft, cozy bed to sleep in, water piped inside that runs both hot and cold, chests that run by power that keep food fresh.  All of it sounds too magnificent to be true.  Yet seeing the houses now as I do, I realize it was true once, long ago. 

“You want to get a closer look?
” Will nudges me lightly and asks.

“No, Will, we can’t,” Riley protests.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Oliver adds. 

“Come on,” Will tries.  “This might be the one and only time we ever get a chance to do it.”

“I would kind of love to see the inside of a house,” June says quietly.

“Me
, too,” I confess.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Will asks.  “Let’s go,” he says as he looks all around then dashes off toward the house nearest to us. 

Worry niggles at the back of my brain.  But I disregard it.  I am carried on a wave of pure curiosity that I cannot resist.  I take June’s hand in mine and follow after him.  Oliver and Riley are not far behind. 

Will is at the front door before we are even on the front step.  He tries the handle and finds that the knob turns easily, it is unlocked. 
He steps inside. 

Sallow light illuminates a narrow pathway and pushes against the darkness
within.  I scan the immediate area, terrified and inquisitive simultaneously.  I spy a stout, cylindrical object in a windowsill to my immediate left.  I go to it, wondering, dreaming it is what I think it is. 

“Will,” I murmur. “Look.” 
I urge him to join me.  In the time I wait, I cannot resist.  I feel it, instantly noting the waxy substance beneath my fingertips confirms what I suspected.  “A candle,” I say as I wrap a hand around it.  Something gritty coats it, but it’s too late for me to worry now.  I slide my other hand beside it, and as I do, I bump a compact item that is lightweight.  I lower the candle to the sill right away, my curiosity provoked beyond any familiar threshold.  I fumble with the packed little thing my hand hit, straining my eyes to see that I am holding a thin cardboard cover.  One side is smooth while the other bears a coarse strip.  I slide my thumb along a ridge on the side opposite the coarse strip and lift a flap.  The cardboard opens like a book, only inside, I don’t find pages.  I find slender sticks.  “A matchbook,” I manage breathlessly. 

“What?” Will asks incredulously.  “No way!  Let me see.”  He is beside me within the space of a breath, his solid arm brushing mine with every move he makes.  My body is at odds over which is more exciting, my recent discoveries, or Will’s proximity.  “Wow,” he says as he manipulates the pocket-sized treasure.  “Think they work?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” I turn my head toward him and challenge. 

My pulse darts against my throat as I wait, anticipation goading it along. 

“That’s right,” he says and tears a stick from the folder.  “Here goes nothing.”  He flips the book and slides the bulbous tip of the stick along the grainy strip on back. 

To my delight and his, a spark flashes before the entire head is aglow. 

“Wow!” Riley exclaims.

“Cool!” Oliver agrees. 

“Amazing,” June adds.

“I know, right.” Will agrees, his eyes riveted to the flame. 

“I can’t believe it,” is all I can say.

I watch as Will brings the flame to the wick of the candle and a soft glow haloes it, bathing the room in warm light. 

“Oh my gosh,” I can’t help but gasp once I am able to see the space around me more clearly. 

All around me I see items I believed were fabled, the stuff of legends and bedtime stories parents told their children.  In the room to my left, a couch,
similar to the one we had in our hut at the compound when I was a little girl, faces a cushioned chair between which a table sits.  The floor is covered in what I assume is carpeting.  I would like nothing more than to remove my boots and socks and walk atop it barefoot, but I do not know what chemicals remain embedded in the fibers.  Everything seems to be covered in a chalky, white film.  I do not know what the film is composed of and do not intend to find out.

“This is crazy,” Will says as he looks around the room with the couch and chair
, all the while holding tight to the candle.  “Can you believe this?  It’s real.  The stories our parents told us are real.”  I hear hope in his voice.  His hope makes me smile and feel my own surge of optimism.  “And it’s not even that dirty,” he adds and points to the fine coating covering everything we see. 

“I know,” I reply, smiling.

“People, human beings, used to actually live here, maybe even kids our age,” he says and sounds as if he is struggling to contain his enthusiasm.

To my right is another room. 

“Will, come this way,” I wave him toward me.  “Come on.  Let’s look in here.”

He obliges and lights the way inside. 
Cabinets that appear to be made of wood hang from the walls, and another table and chair are set up close to the exterior wall.  A window is in front of it.  I imagine a family sitting there, eating their fresh food and talking while enjoying the outside through the comfort and protection of a pane of glass.  I stare at the dark world beyond the glass. 

My eyes continue to scan the room.  Oddly, I see a bowl with fruit sitting atop the counter just below the cabinets.  Fruit does not last long in the forest after it is picked.  It certainly wouldn’t endure centuries of chemical fallout and war.  They would have rotted, turned to dust and blown away long ago.  My eyes follow the line of the countertop and freeze on a bowl with a mushed substance inside.  I move toward it and reach out a hand.  I touch the bowl.  It is warm.  Seeing the fruit then touching the bowl and finding it warm sends a trill of awareness down my spine that raises the fine hairs on my body. 
The situation narrows into razor-sharp focus. 

“Someone is here,” I say as chills
speed over my skin in waves. “We need to go, now!” I whisper urgently to June, Will, Oliver and Riley. 

We turn and begin scrambling toward the
door.  But immediately the sound of footsteps echoes and freezes the blood in my veins. 

“Oh my gosh,” June
says in a hushed, frantic tone.

“Go! Go! Go!” I urge everyone.  But before we make it to the hallway at the end of which the only known exit lies, we hear a voice.

“Wow! Humans are in my house!” the voice says and then makes a soft chuffing sound through the two asymmetrical holes below his eyes.

A miniature creature with a misshapen head, disproportionately larger than his stubby body, ambles toward us.  His lidless, black eyes are wider and clearer than I have ever seen on any
other Urthmen, and his nearly transparent skin seems thinner.  It displays the vivid entanglement of veins spanning his entire head like a web more readily.  Perhaps it is because he looks to be a very young one. 

“Shh!
” I shush him.

“I can’t believe it!” he says and claps his stumpy hands together excitedly
.  As he does so, the black line of his mouth contorts into an expression that displays small, pointed teeth, making him appear even more monstrous. 

I make a mad dash to him, figuring that where there is one there is more.  I clamp one hand over his mouth and hold the other against the back of his head.  He tries to scream.

“Be quiet!” I tell him, but the clatter of footsteps racing down the hall means it is too late. 

I let go of him and draw my sword.  Will grips his club.  The children scurry behind us as we prepare to fight. 

“Mom! Dad!” The young Urthman shouts.

Two
Urthmen storm into the room, one is male and the other is female.  In the instant I glimpse them, an idea flashes through my mind, streaking like lightning in the sky.  I collar the young one, bring him within arm’s reach of me again and place my blade against his throat. 

“Stop where you are,” I order the pair. 

Both stop instantly.  Their cloudy eyes dart from him to my blade then to me.  They widen considerably, a feat I have never witnessed an Urthman perform. 

“Please, don’t hurt him
, human.  He’s just a child,” the male says.

A child implies human origins.  The thing my blade is pressed against is nothing more than a young slaughterer of my species. 

“I have seen plenty of children slaughtered by your kind,” I say in a low voice that sounds foreign to my ears.  “It never seemed to bother you, taking their lives,”

“We didn’t do anything to you,” the female cries out, her voice shrill and pitched high, similar to a distressed woman’s voice.  “Please just let our son go,” she begs.

“Son,” I mumble the word with disgust.  My mother may have had a son growing inside her womb when she begged and pleaded for her life and the life of her unborn baby.  But mercy was not shown to her.  It is a word that is absent from their vocabulary.  I have seen many sons struck down in my lifetime.  The creature before me is not a son; he is not a human being.  He does not deserve such a title.  He is nothing more than the offspring of a murderous pairing in a murderous species.