The Moon Dwellers (28 page)

Not a nice way to treat your so-called guests.

I can
see her halfway up, frozen in place, eyeing the guards on the outside of the fence.
Even between the tightly
woven
chain links, her beauty resonates
from her like ra
diation from uranium.
If she was
a type of energy, she would definitely b
e nuclear.
Although I suspect
that even fro
m this closer distance Roc isn’t
able to
make out her eye color, I can
see
her
emerald beads shining forth with an immense amount of passion and strength.

I am
coiled tighter than a snake ready to strike, my muscles tense
d
and flexed, my fists balled, my feet naturally assuming a runner’s stance.
I start to sprint toward
them just as the bomb explodes.
It sounds
like a cannon
in the quiet night, and I can
feel the shockwaves from the for
ce so strongly that they stop
me dead in my tracks.

I am
fro
zen in place, unsure of what
just happened, or what to do.
The acri
d smell of smoke and dust fill
s
the air.
I ca
n’t see the guards on th
e inside, but presumably they a
re taking cover or
were
injured by the bomb blas
t.
The guards on the outside a
re still pointing their gu
ns at the prisoners, but they a
re pacing, nervous, much less
sure of themselves than they were a few seconds ago
.

Compared
to the second bomb, the first wa
s li
ke getting hit by a feather.
The incendiary tears
through the hotel above us, ma
ybe through the exact room we a
re staying in—whether by coincidence or design—sending shivering tremors through th
e street below our feet.
I lose my footing as a crack widens
in
the stone beneath me.
I roll hard, narrowly
avoid
ing
falling into the widening tentacle in the
street.
I instinctively cover
my head, metaphorically returning to my mother’s womb, curling up in the fetal position.
Heavy chunks of stone shower
down
, battering my defenseless body.
Some of the rocks a
re sharp, having splintered off dange
rously, piercing my skin.
If one penetrates my eyes I will be
instantly blinded.

When the rubble shower ends a few minutes later, I si
t up quickly, sc
anning my surroundings.
Roc has
n’t fared mu
ch better than I, although he i
s sitting up
,
too, rubbing a nasty red bump on his head.
His
clothes and face a
re covered in gray dust.

“You okay?” I say
.

He c
oug
hs and gi
ve
s me a thumbs
-
up sign.
I turn
my attention back to the Pe
n.
The guards on the outside a
re gone, their guns scattered haphazardly
on the ground.
The escapees a
re gone
,
too.

She i
s gone.

“Tristan!” Roc shout
s
behind me.

I turn
, and then, seeing him gazing
at the hotel above us, follow
his line of sight.
Se
veral columns of heavy stones a
re wobbling precariously, on the verge of toppling.

“Go, go, go!” I shout, running hard
toward
the Pen’s fence line.
I
hear Roc’s footsteps pounding behind me, and then a dull, machine-gunning
clatter as the stones collapse
.

I whirl
around, saying the quickest p
rayer of my life for Roc.
He i
s fine, having escaped
the impact zone just in
time.
With Roc safe, my
thought
s
go to her.
But then I remember
someone else: the deskman at our motel.

Without explaining to Roc
, I rush
back to the building, leaping heavy stone slabs and piles of smaller rubble along
the way.
The door
frame i
s mangled, but still holding itself up amidst the pressure of the collap
sing floors above it.
I slip
through,
rapid
ly locating the old man.
Despite his seeming
ly innate
ability to sleep anywh
ere and through anything, he
finally met his match when the bomb hit, or perhaps when the roof partially collapsed.

I’m not sure what
happened to his desk—perhaps
it i
s
splinte
red beyond recognition—but it i
sn’t there anymore.
In its place: the old man—and a huge slab of stone that ha
s
him pinned to t
he ground.
Finally, his head i
s up, his wild eyes looking at me, scared and helpless, begging me to save him.

The stone slab i
s far too big fo
r me.
Even with the
adrenaline
cocktail
coursing through my veins, my first effort at lift
ing it is fruitless.
It does
n’t
budge, not even a little.
It i
s like trying to lift the very earth on my shoulders
, a feat only accomplished by Atlas
—and I am no god
.
While my mind races, I feel a hand on my shoulder.
It i
s Roc, pu
shing me gently aside, sliding
a thick metal pole beneath the st
one.
I have no idea where it came from, but I know exactly what he i
s doing—making
a tool, a lever—and so I locate
a good
-sized roundish stone that I am
able t
o roll over.
Together we push
it under the pole.
Overall,
I am
the bigg
er of the two of us, so I push
down hard on the end of lever, using my entire body weight to force
it to the ground.
The stone i
s massive, and
even with the lever, it strains
against me, trying to thwart my attempt.
Eventual
ly the lever moves
down an inch, and the
n two, gaining speed as I gain
leverage
.
I am straining so hard that I have
to c
lose my eyes for fear th
ey will pop out of my skull
.

I feel
the pole drop suddenly ben
eath me and hear
a loud crack and
a thundering crash.
Even with
my eyes closed, I know what happened.
The pole
snapped in the center like a twig, releas
ing the
stone.
The man was
crushed, broken
beyond repair.
I slowly open
my eyes.

Roc is holding the man, who i
s not crushed, not broken—at least no
t beyond repair.
Evidently I
raised the stone a sufficient height for Roc to slide him out safely before the le
ver snapped.
For that I thank
God.

Roc i
s smiling, hel
ping the man to his feet.
The guy
i
s clearly injured, so we each f
lop
one of his
arm
s
ov
er our shoulders and half-help, half-carry the man out of the cracking building.
As we pass
through the doorframe
, the rest of the roof collapses
, kicking up a cloud
of dust around us as we escape
.

We are lucky.
The old man i
s even luckier.

I’ve never
felt so unsure of what t
o do next.
I guess because I’ve
never
been in such an unbelievabl
y confusing situation.
We hear
booms echoing around the town as more bombs hit, presumably destroy
ing other buildings.
We start
hearing shouts in the distance, both from the Pen and from other streets.
Other people, probably just like us, trying to decide what to do, where to go,
figure out
what i
s going on.

“He ne
eds medical attention,” Roc says
, looking at the man.

“I’m fine,” he g
runts
.

“No…you’re not,” I say
.
“
Where’s
the nearest hospital?”

“I
t
will
have been bombed, too,” he says
gruffly.

He has a point.
Nowhere feels
safe at the mome
nt.
But still, out in the open I
feel like we a
re
too exposed, like at any second
another bomb might land at our feet.
We have
to keep moving.

Roc seems
to be thinking
the same thing.
We both start
moving, forcing the injured
guy to come with us.
We turn the corner, but stop immediately when we see
the scene in front of us.
Smoke, rubble, buildings collapsed and collapsi
ng.
People running.
We skip that street and head
another
block down.
The next street i
s more quiet, not yet hit by any explosions, perhaps not a target of t
he attack by…well, by whoever i
s attacking
—I have
no idea who.

We travel
another half-bl
ock without event and then hear a noise as we a
re passing an old building on
our right.
“Psst,” a voice says
.

A woman i
s waving at us from down a set of stairs, from ins
ide a doorway.
“Psst,” she says
again.

“Yes?” I say
, unsure of how to respond to such a strange greeting.

“Do you need help?” she says
.

We do need help—desperately need help—so I say
, “Please.”

She beckons to us with one hand.
We mak
e our way down the steps awkwardly, tryin
g not to bang the man’s already
battered legs on the stonework.
The woman turns sideways and shepherds
us through the door and onto a small la
nding.
Below us steps descend
into darkness.

Once we are all inside, the woman closes the door and says
, “You’ll
be safe down here.”
She moves
past us to the stairs, holding a long candle in a small
ceramic
bowl h
igh above her head.
We follow
her down, carrying the old
man between us.
The stairway i
s wide enough for us to walk three abreast.

At the bottom i
s anot
her door, which the woman opens.
As she enters, she says
, “I’ve got three more.”

We poke
our head
s
through the door
way, into a small cellar.
It i
s crowded.
Not incl
uding us and the woman, there a
re eight others.
Four candles identical to the o
ne carried by the woman a
re positioned in each corner of the space, providing
spheres of light that overlap
in the center.

“Make y
ourself
at home,” the woman says
, b
efore exiting back the way we ca
me
and
closing the door behind her.
We gingerly lower the old man to the floor,
next to a couple of kids who a
re staring a
t us with wide eyes.
They ca
n’t be more than six years old.

“Thank you,” the man says
, his voice cracking slightly.
His demeanor h
as
changed slightly, as if he’
s
been softened by our persistent willingness to go out of our way to help him.
I wonder what
made him so hard in the first place.
P
erhaps it was just the cruelties
of life—the faltering economy, old ag
e, living in a cave—but I sense
it was something more specific
.
He wears a wedding band but
has
n’t once mentioned his wife, out of concern or interest or
anything.
I guess
that he’
s
lost her already.

Roc si
t
s
dow
n next to the man and I follow
suit.
My back to the rock wall, I ta
k
e
in my surroundings.
The plac
e i
s only about fifteen by fifteen feet.
I
t reminds
me of a small wine
cellar—perhaps that’s what it i
s, or used to be.
No wine ad
orns
its walls anymore.
I’
d be surprised if
anyone
can
afford wine in this subchapter th
ese days.
Regardless of what it used to be, or could’
ve been, it will
serve well as a bomb shelter now, deep under the ground-level rock surface.

In ad
dition to the two kids, there a
re three wome
n and three men.
Two of them hold hands and a
re younger, sitting next to the kids, probably their
parents.
The young wife looks
fearful, maybe not for her own life but surely for
her children’s; her eyes dart
about nervously, always returning to he
r young ones.
The other four a
re older, gray around the edges, with serious faces that would fit in perfectly at a funeral.
Wel
l, at least three of them look
that way.
The fourth—a short, frail man with a
n impressive mop of gray hair—i
s we
aring the biggest grin you could imagine.
I wonder
if my mother’s threat from my childhood—that if you make a face for too long
it will get stuck like that—has
cursed this man.
Perhaps in the throes of an extremely merry moment, his face was frozen in the biggest smile of his life.

It turns out he i
s just a really happy guy.
An optimist for sure.
Always looking on the bright side of things.

“
Crazy weather
we’re having out there,” he says
, somehow managing to keep hi
s smile unchanged while he speaks.
He is looking right at me so I feel
obliged to answer.

“I think
we’re under attack, sir,” I say
, a
ssuming his comment i
s made from senility, rather than lighthearted humor.

It was humor.

“Silly child, I know that, just trying to get a little laughter going in this damn dismal place.”

I do
n’t particularly like him ref
erring to me as a child, but I’m also not
going to start a fight with a crazy, big-smiled old man, not after our experience
in the pizzeria.
Instead I say, “Oh.
Ha ha.”
My laugh co
me
s out even faker than it is.
And it i
s pretty fake.

“Geez, it’s like trying to get a nun to laugh
in a bar in here,” the guy says
, still smiling.
“How’d you end up lugging around ol’ Frankie here?”

The hotel deskman suddenly has
a name.

“Don’t call me that, Chet.
It’s Frank—I’ve told yo
u a million times,” Frankie says
.

“We were staying at his hotel,
” Roc offers
.

“
Hotel?
Ha!
That dump’s more like a dormitory.”

Frankie
glares
at him, burning a hole through him with his eyes.

“I didn’
t think it was that bad,” I say
, trying to get on Frankie’s good
side.
Instead, he just shifts
his glare to me.
I guess the
whole saving his life thing has
worn off.