Wasteland Blues (20 page)

John had mulled over the new equation. Teddy did not worry him. The man-boy blushed furiously if Magdalena even addressed him, and he had welcomed her into the encircling arms of his simple loyalty. Leggy had a chivalrous streak in him, a quality that John had been surprised to see shining through the rude hide of the old goat. His talk was still inappropriate with a woman present, but John knew the old man would never try anything without Magdalena’s consent.

But Derek.

Derek never even spoke to Magdalena, barely acknowledged her presence. At first John thought it was because Derek was upset to have a woman join them. But then another idea took root—perhaps the effort that Derek put in to ignoring her meant she was ever present in his mind. And now Derek had her to himself, alone in a dark, strange place.

The anxiety in John’s guts became too much. “Damn the storm,” he shouted. “I’m goin’ down!”

“Wait!” called Leggy.

At that moment a fork of lighting struck the peaked roof. Lighting ran along the crystal frame, and the walls thrummed with electricity. Tingling energies ran from the soles of their feet up to their heads, making their hair stand on end. A blast of noise rocked the structure, and the house itself suddenly went opaque. The transparent glass turned to sheets of cold white. Even the mirrored floor had been transformed, like a frozen pond under a dusting of snow.

The noise of the storm cut out, leaving the travelers in a ringing silence.

“What the Hell?” said Leggy.

“Look,” said Teddy. “The door is gone!” He pointed to the place where they had found their way inside. Now the wall stood unbroken, the opening vanished. They were trapped. The air inside was still, no wind could penetrate.

John ran to the stairs. The spiral staircase still stood, but the stairs ended at the floor. The shaft had vanished.

“No,” shouted John. He fell to his knees and banged on the floor with his fists.

“Magdalena! Magdalena, can you hear me? Magdalena?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“The stairs end here,” said Derek, speaking over his shoulder. “I’m standing on a floor, and there’s some kind of archway.”

“Can you see anything?” asked Magdalena. She had tried to go back up the staircase and found the way blocked, and so had returned to Derek.

“No. It’s still too dark.”

Derek waited as Magdalena made her way down the last few stairs to stand next to him. He felt her put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’d guess we’re in a large room or open space,” she said quietly. “The air is cool and fresh. Can you feel the way it moves?”

“It does feel cooler down here,” he said. “Hey! Hello?” Derek called loudly. A faint echo returned to them, filled with distant reverb. “A
very
large room,” he agreed.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“I’ve got matches,” he said. “I’m going to risk a light.” He took a match from his pocket and lit it. The head sputtered to life. Derek winced against the pinpoint of flame for a moment, then held the match out in front of him. He was relieved to find that his eyes still worked. The match cast a tiny halo of light, enough that he could see his hand, and Magdalena’s face. But by itself the match was too weak to penetrate the deep darkness, and they had no better idea of where they were.

The orange flame ate its way quickly down the matchstick, singing his fingertips before he dropped it to the floor, where it sputtered and died. Darkness covered them like a black hood. The sulfur smell of the match was sharp in the air, and suddenly he realized what a target he’d made of them.

There came a sharp crack of noise. Derek’s fingers trembled on the railing of the spiral stairs.

“What the Hell?” he said.

At that moment the room filled with white light and a burst of discordant music. Derek flung his arms up over his eyes. White patterns and shapes danced behind his eyelids.

As suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped. Derek dropped his arm and blinked owlishly against the bright light.

“What happened?” asked Magdalena. “What was that?”

“Somebody turned on the lights,” said Derek.

“What do you see?”

“Not much. Everything’s kinda hazy and white. But we’re in a big…bunker, or warehouse or something.
Really
big. I—”

Derek stopped. He heard footsteps—hard, heavy feet clocking against the smooth floor, coming toward them out of the bright haze. Magdalena swiveled toward the sound, unslinging her rifle from her back.

“Who’s there?” shouted Derek, knife ready in his hand. He peered into the cavernous room, his eyes still adjusting to the bright glare of a million overhead lights.

“Greetings,” a voice answered. “Welcome to your new home.”

***

It had been nearly an hour since the lighting strike. Leggy and Samuel sat in silence on the white floor, watching the animals sleep, huddled together on the makeshift carpet.

Teddy paced around the staircase, clenching and unclenching his fists. John walked the inner perimeter of the crystal house, its walls and floors still an opaque white. He tapped and pressed and pushed, hoping to trip a hidden button or switch.

Suddenly Afha’s ears perked and his eyes opened. He tilted his head toward the stairs and brayed. John and Teddy stood still. A distant, mechanical
Whiiiir-klomp, whiiir-klomp
sound came from beneath their feet. It was growing closer. Beneath the floor, something was slowly ascending the stairs.

Leggy grabbed Derek’s shotgun and ordered Samuel to take cover behind the mules. “Teddy! Johhny! Stand tall. Something’s comin’ up.”

“Der?” cried Teddy, running toward the stairs. “That you, Der?”

“It ain’t them,” Leggy said, “Get away from there, both of you.” Teddy and John backed away from the staircase.

“I don’t like this,” Samuel squeaked from his spot behind Minna. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Really?” Leggy asked.

“In general,” Samuel clarified. “I’m not sensing anything, if that’s what you mean. Strange, but I’m not sensing…
anything
.”

At that moment the crystal dome went transparent again. The night sky was brilliant with stars, the desert landscape lit with silver.

The sandstorm was over.

And the shaft beneath the stairs was open again.

John leaped for it and then pulled up short. A small head popped over the edge of the stairs. It was made of metal with antenna jutting from either side. The antennae quivered, and then it pulled itself up onto the mirrored floor with heavy, treaded wheels.

“What the Hell?” Leggy asked.

The thing was boxy, about the size of a dog. It was made of a dull metal, and rolled steadily across the floor on its treaded wheels. Except for the antennae and the short, elephantine hose-like trunk that protruded from its front, the contraption reminded Leggy of a miniature version of the hulking burned out husks of the tanks that littered the no-man’s land of Old Tijuana.

“Should I step on it?” Teddy asked. “Should I squash it?”

“Wait,” Leggy ordered. “Give it a minute. Let’s see what it wants.”

John took a step toward the staircase.

“Hold on,” called Leggy. “Don’t go down by yourself.”

John looked over his shoulder at the old man. “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t leave her down there.” He descended into darkness.

“Fuck,” shouted Leggy.

“What do we do?” asked Samuel.

Leggy didn’t like John going down by himself, but he also wasn’t keen on following him, because it would mean leaving Samuel and Teddy behind—and frankly he was more worried about Teddy than the boy because the man-child was already on edge with his brother gone.

***

The wheeled visitor didn’t seem to want anything from the intruders. In fact, it seemed not to even notice them.

Leggy, Teddy, Samuel, and the animals watched as it rolled casually across the mirrored floor, headed in a straight line toward where the door had been. It stopped a few feet shy of the wall, just in front of a drift of dust and sand, and its trunk-hose began to tremble and sway as if it were sniffing the floor. Suddenly the sound of a loud motor erupted from its belly, causing the others to jump, and it began to suck up the sand through its snout. It continued to roll around the floor, snorting up the errant drifts of sand and dust.

Within a few minutes it had sucked up all the sand in the drift. Then it headed toward the place where the door had been. With a
zapping
sound, it emitted a stream of electricity from its antennae to the glass, and the door reappeared.

The robot casually rolled through the door, turned in a few circles as if choosing a spot, then raised its trunk and expelled all of its gathered sand in a pile on the ground outside. Then it turned, came back in, and headed for the stairs.

Just then, three more machines emerged from the hole. They were flat and disk-shaped, and moved silently on soft, furry undersides, polishing the floor as they went.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Leggy.

Eventually the disk-bots made their way over to the blankets where the humans and animals sat. The bots began to emit a series of frantic, annoyed beeps.

“Sam, get up,” Leggy ordered. “Teddy, see if you can’t move those blankets out of their way. Sam, get those mules up. Quick!”

With a confused bustle of activity, Teddy attempted to yank the blankets out from beneath Samuel and the animals, who in turn lost their balance and began to dance frantically for footing on the mirrored floor. To add to the panic of the mules, the disk-bots immediately saw their opening and
wooshed
in, gliding deftly between and around panicked, shuffling hooves, cleaning all the while.

Once the inside was finished, the three robots went out the open door. In less time than Leggy would’ve imagined possible, the machines climbed the walls and polished the outside of the house, returned to the ground, formed a neat line, and came back in.

And with no further ado, the four robots descended the stairs and were soon lost to the darkness below. The house was as clean as it had been when the group had first discovered it.

***

An hour had passed since the departure of the robots. And then another. Teddy was frantic with worry about his brother.

Leggy bit his lip. Surely something was wrong. He wouldn’t put it past Derek to let them worry, but he was certain that Maggie and John would’ve checked back by now. Their absence could only mean that they were in danger. And if they were in danger, someone had to go down and get them out of it.

But who? Teddy couldn’t fit down the shaft, which left only himself and Samuel—the legless wonder and the child freak. Not much of a rescue crew.

Leggy sighed, a sinking feeling in his gut accompanied the knowledge of what he knew he must do. He put two fingers to his lips and whistled, “C’mon Sheba. C’mere doggy.” Then he frowned, “Samuel, I’m gonna need you to help me down those stairs.”

Sam nodded.

Leggy took a deep breath. “Teddy, you have to stay up here and guard the mules. I’m going down there and I’m going to come back up with your brother. That’s a promise. But you’re going to have to promise me that you will stay with the animals and protect them if you have to. Can you do that, big guy?”

Teddy thought for a long moment, and then nodded.

“And you’re going to have to promise me something else, Teddy. Okay? You’re going to have to promise me that if something dangerous comes up those stairs…or if we don’t come back up by tomorrow night, that you’ll leave the next morning. You’ll have to head back to Moses Springs, find Silas, and tell him what happened. Can you do that, Teddy? Can you make that promise to old Leggy?”

For a while Teddy said nothing. He mulled over what the old man had said, considering it as carefully and as quickly as his cloudy mind would allow. Eventually, wordlessly, he nodded, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Good then,” Leggy said, and left it at that.

***

Leggy, Samuel, and Sheba moved quickly but cautiously down the stairwell. Samuel tried to assist him, but it proved easier to simply let the old man climb down of his own accord.

At the bottom of the shaft was a doorway through which light poured. Leggy stopped. His arms were sore from the descent, and his heart was thumping heatedly in his chest. Samuel stood behind him, nervous and silent. Sheba whined softly. Leggy took several deep, long breaths to calm himself, and then peered through the doorway.

It opened onto a vast, brightly lit room. High, stone walls arched upward toward a ceiling, from which hung thousands of lights. Leggy eased himself through the doorway and out onto the floor. The floor was cool against his palms and slightly damp. The size and shape of the place reminded him of the arena in Los Angeles, where the locals went to take in public executions and mutie fights. This place was in much better shape though and didn’t stink of blood and urine like the other.

The shaft they had come down opened into a far end of the grand room, so that the wide expanse of the place spread before them, inviting them inward.

Samuel eased his way past the old man, followed by Sheba. The boy looked up at the great domed ceiling. Leggy watched his face for signs of awe or distress, but the boy seemed calm. If it was true that he’d come out of that bunker that Youslus had blasted open, then maybe he was used to being underground.

As the trio made their way forward, they saw a pair of signs standing on the floor, one larger than the other. The nearer sign was made of tarnished brass and though clean and free of rust and dust, was scuffed with age. It read:

WELCOME!

FOLLY OF MAN:

Museum of the Past, Present (and Future?)

Open to Visitors

The second sign was smaller and made of yellow plastic. This sign read:

CAUTION!

Wet Floor

Beneath the letters was the black silhouette of a figure slipping on a wet surface.

“Well, this is just plain weird,” said Leggy, who had been expecting to be set upon by some dark horror, not given a polite warning to watch his step. He wondered if maybe the others hadn’t been waylaid. Perhaps they were just exploring the vast wonderland. He cupped his hands to his mouth and was about to holler for John, when he stopped. He looked at Samuel.

“Can you…can you sense anyone?”

Samuel shrugged. “Not really. There’s a smattering of brain activity, but it’s faint and distorted. If anyone’s down here, they must be catatonic.”

“Cata-what?” asked Leggy.

“Out cold,” said Samuel.

“Hmmm,” said Leggy. He stroked his grizzled chin as he looked about him.

He saw that all around the circumference of the room large, square panes of glass had been set into the walls, like old-fashioned shop windows that storekeepers used to have—before the nukes had shattered them all. Roughly half of the windows were lit from within, but there seemed to be no discernible pattern to their illumination.

Not knowing what else to do, Leggy and Samuel strode over to the glass window to their left. This window was dark, but by cupping his hands to the sides of his head and peering inside Leggy could see that it was empty. Gray walls and no obvious features.

They worked their way slowly around the perimeter, checking each darkened window as they went. More of the same. And then they came to the first of the lighted windows and peered inside.

Samuel gasped. In the room were three large dogs with glowing red eyes. Each was clad in powered armor with mounted weapons. Their teeth were barred. Foam and spittle clung to their lips. Behind them stood two soldiers, also heavily clad in battle armor and rebreathers. All were silent and still. A sign bolted next to the window read
Dogs of War, circa 2085
. The back wall of the room was a photo diorama of a burning city, a generic battleground of the last World War.

“They’re dummies.” Leggy breathed a sigh of relief. “They ain’t real. Just statues.”

He and Samuel passed to the next display of a shanty town like the kind that had sprung up outside of major urban centers after the bombs had fallen. The diorama focused on a tin shack with a tarp roof, the family inside suffering various advanced stages of radiation sickness. At the center of this Hellish tableau a young woman offered her infant a breast to suckle. The artist had carefully detailed the sores and scabs on the mother’s skin, and the wasting body of her son, his eyes wide with pain as cancer devoured him from the inside. The sign read
Madonna and Child, circa 2087
.

Each window they passed took them through the dark history of the Last War and its aftermath
. The Toxic Upheaval - The Arrival of the Bugs - The Extermination Volunteers - The Cleansing of the Cities - The Rendering of The Word
. In this way they made a nearly complete circuit of the arena, their steps describing an oval that took them back toward the door to the shaft.

Eventually Leggy and Samuel came to a lit window almost directly across from the door through which they had entered. A sign inside read
Desert Dwellers, Commonly Referred to as “Muties” – Present Day
.

Inside the room was full of sand. The background was an image of endless desert and rolling dunes. A bright, hidden light poured heat and glare from above. Lying in the middle of the room, huddled together, were three vaguely human skeletons. The remains of a fourth skeleton were scattered all about.

“That’s weird,” said Leggy. “Where’s the mannequins? Those ain’t muties, just dried bones.”

Samuel gulped. “Maybe…maybe this used to be a live display.”

“You mean with real muties?” asked Leggy.

Samuel nodded.

“But eventually they would’ve just…if they couldn’t get no humans to eat, they woulda….”

“They would’ve what?” asked Samuel.

Leggy shook his head. “Never mind. C’mon.”

The next lit window stopped them dead in their tracks. Inside, the room was made to appear as a comfortable bedroom, of the sort that neither Leggy nor Samuel had ever known. A painting of a pastoral red barn hung on the wall. A King James Bible lay bookmarked on the end table. Two half-empty glasses of water stood between the Bible and a shaded reading lamp. A large bed with a fluffed down comforter was positioned catty-cornered for maximum viewability.