Drink For The Thirst To Come Part 2

Slipped out. Stupid. Stupid. Everyone asks. But everyone doing don't make a thing not stupid.

"Right here." She pointed down. "I'm a Chicagoan and lived to tell." There was another laugh. "'Course, I never saw it, either." Just a giggle, this time. What the h.e.l.l, he'd heard that giggle a million times, bunnies on the bus. Never understood it.

"'Course not," he said.

"But you? How did you get here? From Gulf...?

"Dolph."

"Dolph, Texas, then?"

"Dolph Station."

The day darkened, the air chilled. From the brightest morning in years, the clouds layered one sheet atop another. Little winds rose here and there, whirligigs of pulver climbed between them and the horizon. Not enough to raise a wraith but distance vanished. Rain coming, snudfall maybe.

He picked up the pace. "Walked," he said.

"Hm."

He gutted the urge to smack her and picked up the pace again.

He could have told her, would have been something to do, walking. Why bother, why talk? The Walk took a year. Before that they'd waited. Waited for the government. Waited for the Long Season to end. Waited for someone to say. Month on month, night and cold, wind eternal from the north raised whole counties of Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas. The wind rolled them down Dolph Station way. Blowing ice cut like knives, and the dust, forever dust, filled his guts.

When Chris'd been a kid, Grandpa told of dusters down in '34. Mutt Harp had seen them.

Christian Harp saw them now, living mountains of breathing black where G.o.d's blue sky and far horizons ought to be. He saw twister winds descend, bow down, lay on their sides, become miles-long rollers that sucked earth, sand, houses, lives, into the black rising giant, then drove it down, grinding, pulverizing.

They left no food or power. No cars, trucks, planes or trains. No buses. Gas was done. The wind drifted roadways, runways, railroads under-under forever. h.e.l.l, where's to go anyway? And there was Chris Harp, a roller where nothing rolled, a man without worth.

After a year, maybe more, t here came a lee. A few were left. Some put wind to their backs, headed south toward the Gulf. f.u.c.k that. Chris had seen the Gulf p.i.s.sed-off! He and the worthless rest, a hundred, maybe more, headed into the wind, Panhandle to the Chicago Waste, east and north a thousand miles, maybe more.

They walked another year of Long Season. n.o.body knew what but winter had come forever. Along the way there'd been a dozen dusters, dusters that stretched as far as there was of east and west across the night dark plains of No Man's Land.

The Walkers knew the storm was always with them, knew there only was one storm, that monster who lived in the earth and waited for the wind to wake it. They hid from the worst and walked in calms between, but even when the beast lay down, there was no stillness, just a dark moan that rolled, and kept rolling until the beastie rose and filled a walker with Himself. Dust pneumonia, they called it, dust cancer, sometimes. Touched by it, you kept going or you didn't. Most didn't. No heroes in the walk. How many reached the Wastes? Of the hundred? Five, six? He didn't know. He didn't know them. They were just dust on foot, just them that hadn't dropped. He was one.

f.u.c.kem all.

"And?" she asked again.

"What? Nothing. Winter came and didn't end. Grub was gone so we walked. Took a year. Most died."

"You didn't."

"Apparently."

"I see." She walked. "After Wave One, you walk out of Texas to Chicago?"

"Pretty much."

"And on your way you dined upon?"

"Thistle. b.u.t.ter. Rabbit."

"Thistle..."

"What you call tumbleweed. Russian thistle! You never...?"

"b.u.t.ter..."

"Never took roach b.u.t.ter...?

She swallowed a puke.

"Rabbit's rabbit! You never seen a Jack stamp?"

"Jack?"

"Rabbit!"

"A jackrabbit stamp?"

"Pede. Stampede!"

"Bunnies on the run? A fearsome sight I'd bet."

What she don't know, he thought.

Chris and the girl pointed noses toward the bong-bongs. They crossed from Center turf into the deadlands. Funny, he thought, just this morning, I thought to find that bong-bong's reason...

The air was clear enough so that jagged stump of the Monadnock and a few other buildings marked the Heath and Hollows on a hazy horizon. Senor Temoco, he'd find them, sure.

Thinking bong-bong and deadlands, Chris considered the rebar bolt that had fluttered out of the 'Tween place and buried itself up to its sheet-tin fletching in the meat of Lenny the kicker's leg. The day had been a common one in a quiet time. Then someone shouts, "Incoming!" Head's-up, Lenny throws the Boss aside. There's a meaty thunk could be heard forever and Lenny's scream tops it all and there's Lenny, his good left leg-his kicking leg-pinned to the standing part of a fallen wall. Lenny's wails went on until the Boss dusted off and shut him down. Len had nuts, say that! The rest followed: a dozen shift-work scrabblers and a handful of newsons hung around, leaning and licking lips at the looking while the bolt's hacksawed then drawed out of Lenny's meat. All of them were thinking who'll dip what of the kicker's stuff when he gives it up?

He didn't give it. The Boss cut and drew the bolt, his own hands, Chris, sitting on Lenny's legs as Lenny bucked. Ribbed steel pulls out rough. Still, he made it through.

Now there they were, Chris and this girl, walking plain across the land from whence the bolt had come. Senor Temoco hadn't fired that bolt. Not he, himself, pretty sure. Someone out here jerking off, was all. 'Tweeners, n.i.g.g.e.rtown kinks.

"Tell me more about your walkabout?" Chris jolted off his think about rebar bolts, the casual jerking off of 'Tweeners, Senor Temoco, about the box to come and about that plump and fragrant girl critter herself who'd just jolted him!

"Quiet," he said quietly, "'Tweeners," he added to be nice. She stayed quiet for three steps.

"'Tween...?"

"Shh."

Another step.

"Okay. What's tha- "Sh!"

"...that gong?" she whispered.

"You'll tell me," he whispered back, "being a Chicagoite and all, you tell me what's been out here bonging, long as I remember."

She listened for a few steps. "Well..."

"Hsht..." he said.

"...wind, loose metal, maybe... something...

"Sh," he said.

"'Sh' why?" she started.

"Shh the f.u.c.k up is why!" He shouted his whispers now. He stopped long enough to give her one good plink, let her know it meant a busted lip, maybe, if she didn't Shh real good. He didn't like stopping here: deadlands, 'Tweeners, bong-bongs, h.e.l.l! Yeah, he was thinking 'Tweeners scared hissownd.a.m.nself! And he wished he had the Boss's way with plinking looks and steely nerve!

Out came that wet little laugh. She raised her hands in surrender and took the lead, patted his shoulder as she pa.s.sed.

That s.h.i.t never happened to the Boss.

h.e.l.l, maybe there ain't no 'Tweeners by.

With her ahead the walk went quiet. The ground beneath, they moved inside a gray dome, chill dark above and nothing all 'round. Easy walking, but when Chris figured it noonish, he was ready for a breather. Old, he thought, near old at least. "Grunts," he said-too loud-and slipped his pack by a hollow drop. The Girl perched her rump on a heap of brick and stared at the grub from her pack.

"What's..." she started.

"Sh, don't," he said. Doesn't recognize b.u.t.ter. Didn't know thistle, never heard of jack. What the h.e.l.l's she been grunting since The Day? If she didn't know roach, he wasn't going to explain roach, not here. The noise alone, he thought.

"Don't eat it, you don't want it."

She dipped a yarrow leaf in the pale yellow paste then touched it with her tongue.

"Ah. Lovely," she said. "For the conversation portion of the meal you'll tell me more of your hero's journey?"

Torqued his jaw. "No, you'll tell me. Don't know b.u.t.ter, don't know thistle. Don't know much of nothing. Where the h.e.l.l you been?"

"Why am I alive?"

"You might could start there."

"That is what it means, yes? 'Where were you on The Day?' means 'How come so-and-so's dead and you're not?'" A moment's quiet. A gear shifted behind her eyes and she slipped the distance between them, sat at his feet. She was warm. He felt her warmth through his leggings and slacks. Her eyes were green.

"On The Day, I was in the Deep Tunnel. You're not from here, okay. The Deep Tunnel was an engineering project, to cut flooding, keep effluents out of the Lake."

He stared.

"Think sewer!" she said.

"You was in a sewer when."

"Think big sewer. Think really big sewer! Think Gargantua, King Kong, G.o.dzilla. The Triple Trump in Vegas. Think that. The Deep is tunnels 40 feet in diameter, 400 feet down there." She pointed to the ground. "Two hundred and seven point three miles of tunnel. That's a world down there.

"The Tunnel was going to keep Lake Michigan clean... where we got our drinking water, Chicago, back then. Thing was begun..." She squinted. The squint was kind of sweet. "I don't know project history. I was engineering a.s.sistant to a Commissioner, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. They started digging in 1980. By The Day, the thing had spread about everywhere there was under the City. Probably below us, right here."

"So, so! On The Day?"

"So on The Day. I was adjacent to one of the South Calumet catchments, four hundred and twenty eight feet below grade wrapped in solid limestone and d.a.m.n near Indiana. My Commissioner, world-cla.s.s c.o.c.ksucker that he was, you see, knew it was coming, The Day. Well, everybody did! Didn't we all? I mean, it was in the air, right? There was this feeling, the whole race had it, the big kill off, 'Let's just get it done, do it, right now!' You know?

He did not.

"I mean, more or less. You did? I mean, you felt it in the air?"

He'd not.

"Well my guy, Commissioner c.o.c.ksucker Michael Acciari, was prepared! One of the few. Well, he had the chops for it. I mean, give a man a 7-billion-dollar hole in the ground, he can hide a few private scratches.

"Mike had a whole side section excavated, sealed, finished, provisioned-the works-water, food, fuel, tools, books, movies. Civilization enough for a hundred people for 20 years! More." She was panting. "A little world. And all for himself." Her eyes locked on Chris. "And a friend."

He couldn't see in the near dark but he knew those green eyes were wet.

"So. We're working, doing what we do, Monday-through. Suddenly Mike's 'going to the field' he says, 'contractor needs verification, yadda, yadda.' And I, I don't know from The Day because it's just another day, it's work, and I don't know the end of the world's in motion and I go with my Commissioner because that's what I do and he needs me to verify, for the record, a testament, you know, attest to the f.u.c.king record to bring before the Board of Commissioners." Her voice dropped. "The G.o.dd.a.m.n humping mother records and the board of socktucking Commissioners. You know? And that's where we are. Specifically, that's where I am and Commissioner c.o.c.ksucker is on The Day-at the Moment that day became The Day and it all went! You know? Dead. I am checking flow rate, one catchment to another and, boom. It went.

"Ever hear a nuclear detonation a couple dozen miles away through 428 feet of limestone?"

Chris stared.

"Don't. Bad for the sinuses. Feels like you opened the door on Mars 2. One big suck, then slam! Like an underwater explosion. The pressure blasts up your skull like it's the inside of a hydraulic ram and someone shoved the drive pipe up your a.s.s."

"Underwater! Yeah!" Chris said.

"When you realize you really are alive, you notice everything's dark and dead and has been for, well, since that first big suck. And you're there, alone, at the bottom of the world. Alone meaning him and you, c.o.c.ksucker Adam and Ms. f.u.c.king Eve. Which has been his thinking all along. Stick to the books, kids: I was hired out of IIT, third in my cla.s.s, to be f.u.c.king Eve. Emphasis on, well, you know?"

He was noticing her wet green eyes when the 'Tweeners showed.

He smelled before he heard. He caught the whiff around the time he remembered underwater thunder from his dream-memory. Deadlands were full of every which-kind of stink, so he didn't think too much about this stench until sc.r.a.pes and grunts started coming from the shade and haze, Wetward. Without a "shh" he wrapped his arm around her neck and covered her mouth with his gloved mitt. She wiggled and blew snot but caught on when he eased them into a quiet slide down a dozen feet of shattered brick and pulver into a cellar hole. At bottom was a three-foot drop into the muck. It oozed but didn't splash and he shoved her against what had been a bas.e.m.e.nt wall five years back.

It had been years since he'd had to duck and cover from slinking sc.u.m-thank the Center's kickers-but it came back. He pressed them to the tangled roots sprouted from the wall. She'd shh'd.

The 'Tweeners were having a good old time, no trail discipline, probably hadn't reckoned anyone but themselves being in the 'lands. Cripes, he should have heard them a good half-minute earlier but he'd tuned to the girl being f.u.c.ked on The Day or whatever. The 'Tweeners were talking some s.h.i.t he didn't, greaser, n.i.g.g.e.r, Polack! Walking burnups, Christ... Who knew what they talked or what twitched their nads, if nads they had?

They pa.s.sed in shadows above. Chris knew more than he could see. Dreams and imaginings filled them in, made the picture whole. "They live to f.u.c.k witcha!" the Boss had said. Hate a Wrigleytowner for his airs, a greasy Mex from the Heaths and Hollows, maybe, b.a.s.t.a.r.d Soxers, absolutely! But 'Tweeners? Well, you deal. h.e.l.l, they're there to f.u.c.k you, f.u.c.k you good so you f.u.c.k them sure! Chris knew they had no teeth-or just a few, but them few filed sharp as h.e.l.l! He knew they were more scar than skin, and never enough limbs, no hair except white and straggling thin stuff here and there. Eyes? A few. That he knew though he'd never seen. Among 'Tweeners, Chris knew the Boiler would have been a pretty man, his smile, Christmas jolly, his laugh, sugar sweet! That much Chris knew. Now, he strained to see.

Shadows pa.s.sed, above. The clouds had thickened in the nooning of the day and the dark was near to night. No matter what the Boss said about the Long Season, today was dark, cold, and Seasonable!

One, angles and humps, stopped near the edge above. He stirred the air and shouted a whiskery hush. The stench it spread, the sound it kicked from gut and throat gave Chris the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. Then it waited, stumps on hips, like a Boss, while the others slid their s.h.i.t. Spalls and bits of pulver rolled down on them. Under 'Tweener babble was a rolling crush. They were moving something big.

Bolt-shooter. Bolt shooter, yes.

The girl wiggled under his hand and pointed. A dozen yards along the wall, the brick showed black. A cut, a hidey hole maybe. They worked toward it. Four yards, six... Chris's eyes on the 'Tweener by the edge.