Call of the last survivo.., p.7
Call of the Last Survivor, page 7
“You have seen him!” the beehive said, suddenly very excited. “Where?”
“I’ll tell you that,” Mikaleh said carefully. “But first you should take a turn sharing some of the things that you know. For example, why were you and the other beehives in that grotto fighting with Grumpy Joe. I’m guessing it wasn’t just because he was grumpy.”
“Actually, for a mist monster he wasn’t that grumpy at all,” the beehive said. “That name was sort of ironic. Like how you might call a big person ‘Tiny.’ But anyhow, why do you think we were there?”
“The gold key with the ruby handle,” Mikaleh said.
“That’s right,” said the buzzing hive. “We got word that Grumpy Joe had it. We went to ask him if he did. You’d think he would have been cooperative about something so important, but husks and mist monsters are not always friendly with one another—contrary to what humans might think. Some things were said. Some accusations were made. One thing led to another, and a fight broke out.”
“And that was the end of Grumpy Joe,” said Sammy.
“And the end of quite a few beehives, too,” said the beehive. “There were twenty of us when we went into that grotto. Only four came out. And now there is only me.”
“Did Grumpy Joe have the key?” Mikaleh asked.
The beehive buzzed to indicate annoyance.
“Would I be sitting here talking to you if he had it? No, of course he didn’t. We searched the entire grotto. There was nothing to be found. Even a small grotto takes hours to search. It was quite a task.”
“We know that,” Sam said. “We were just there, and we did the same thing.”
“So now I have told you something,” said the beehive. “Now you will tell me something. Where did you see that husk? ‘Droopy’ is indeed the right word for him. I shall have to remember that. His appearance is quite odd.”
Mikaleh thought it was a stretch for anybody wearing a beehive on their head to be criticizing the appearance of other people. But considering the situation, she decided to let it slide.
“We might have run into him in Stonewood,” Mikaleh said carefully. “And he also thought that Grumpy Joe might have the key. We agreed to go and have a look. But obviously, your team had beat us to it.”
“I always knew he was driven by something irrational,” the beehive said. “If he is enlisting squads of humans to help him, then he has transcended even irrationality. This is madness. Clearly he must be stopped.”
“So …” Mikaleh said carefully. “Why do you guys want the gold key with the ruby handle?”
“That should be obvious,” said the beehive. “To prevent anyone from releasing the Last Survivor. But you would not have asked that question if you truly understood. I am beginning to think that maybe your squad has stumbled into something beyond your understanding. If this is the case, I advise you to consider going home and forgetting about all of this. The husks—and, yes, perhaps the mist monsters—will settle this among ourselves. It is better for humans not to interfere.”
The beehive stood as though it would now depart. It took a few steps toward the wall of the Storm, then stopped.
“I almost forgot,” it said. “May I please have my bee now?”
Sam and Sammy looked at Mikaleh. She gave a nod. Sam opened the door to the hut and released the bee. It quickly exited the hut and headed directly into the hive. Soon, it was lost among a hundred others just like it.
“Thank you,” the beehive said. “Remember my words. Stay out of this if you know what’s good for you.”
And with that, it disappeared back into the Storm. The Storm wall made a flash of white and purple as the beehive passed through, and then it was gone entirely.
“What was that about?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I’m still not clear about why the beehives care about the Last Survivor … but it’s clear that they do care,” said Sammy.
“Mmmmm mmm mmmm?” mumbled Janet.
“Someone help Janet with her tape,” Mikaleh said.
Sammy peeled the tape from around Janet’s mouth.
“Ow,” she said. “But thank you.”
“What were you asking?” Mikaleh said.
“I was asking how the beehives know about Droopy,” Janet said. “Because it’s clear that they do. This is all connected in some strange way.”
“I agree with you,” Mikaleh said. “We’ve just got to figure out what it is.”
The squad stared doubtfully into the Storm wall.
“What do we do now?” asked Janet. “I feel like we’re at a dead end. I was hoping we would learn something new from the beehive, but we didn’t learn anything at all. Not anything that tells us where to find the key, at any rate.”
“I think you may be mistaken,” Mikaleh said. “I think we learned something very important today. Namely, that the Last Survivor exists and the husks know about him … or her. This might not tell us where to find the key. But I think it tells us what our next steps should be.”
“What’s that?” asked Janet.
Mikaleh’s response was firm and assured.
“We’re going to find the Traveler.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The squad trekked through a thick forest on the outskirts of a suburb filled with modest homes and an abandoned strip mall built in the times before the Storm. The woods were filled with light and animals. The sun shone brightly through the trees.
“The last place I saw him was at a settlement just up ahead,” Mikaleh said. “I think this is as good a place to start as any.”
“I feel so bad for not taking him seriously back in the day,” said Janet. “When he was around, I just thought he was a crazy man. I thought the things he said were just nonsense. Now it’s like learning that the nonsense words the crazy man was saying were actually the names of all the stocks I needed to buy to become a millionaire.”
“How could you have known?” asked Sam.
“I don’t think I could have,” said Janet. “None of us could have. But now we do. So let’s go be millionaires! … in a manner of speaking.”
As they approached the suburb where other groups of survivors had constructed a settlement of forts and shields, Mikaleh privately hoped that she was doing the right thing. The more she thought about the Last Survivor, the more anxious she became. It had gone from the ravings of a hobo to something that seemed to involve the entire husk community. She had the feeling of someone who has just walked into someone else’s party. You don’t know who is who, or what game everyone is playing, but you just try to keep cool and fit in. But also, instead of people at the party, it’s murderous husks who just might try to attack you at any given moment. And then also you’ve brought along your best friends and put them in danger too … It was a funny feeling, and not entirely pleasant. Mikaleh did her best to keep a brave face and make it look like she felt confident and knew what she was doing. Sometimes, in a zombie apocalypse filled with husks and monsters, looking brave was the next best thing to actually being brave. And sometimes looking brave was the best you were going to get.
They exited the forest and began to approach the settlement-proper. Surviving humans had used one of the old strip malls as a starting point to build a base filled with the kind of amenities survivors might need. It had a workshop, a gun range, and then a second gun range in case the first one broke. It was like a small city, filled with the hustle and bustle of people at work.
The squad began heading for the large front door of the settlement—twelve feet tall and reinforced against husk attacks—but Mikaleh steered them around the side of the perimeter instead.
“Wait, where are we going?” asked Sam. “I thought you said this was the last place you saw the Traveler.”
“It was,” Mikaleh said. “But he wouldn’t be inside with all the skilled, hardworking people who are—you know—actually earning their keep.”
“He wouldn’t?” said Sam.
“No,” Mikaleh said. “I think we want to look around here, near the rear of the encampment.”
Sam was not sure he understood, but Mikaleh seemed so brave and confident that he decided to trust her.
Sure enough, camped at the back of the settlement—in an undefended position where the strip mall abutted the forest—were several scruffy-looking people in crude tents. They looked like they were not doing very much of anything, as though their only goal was to avoid working hard. Most of them were relaxing on the ground.
“I wonder what these kind of people used to be,” Janet said as Mikaleh looked them over. “You know, before the Storm.”
“I think we can make some educated guesses,” Mikaleh responded. “Con artists. Grifters. People who would go to great lengths to steal subway tokens out of vending machines. You know, that sort.”
As Mikaleh made this appraisal, one scruffy man wearing a very old and tattered tuxedo took notice of the squad. He hopped to his feet, spit on his hand and slicked down his hair, and grinned a bright grin that showed several missing teeth. Then he sauntered over confidently.
“Hello, strangers,” he said like a used car salesman. “I can tell from your being armed to the teeth and whatnot that you are a group deeply concerned with staying safe from husks.”
“Actually, they tend to be more concerned with staying safe from us,” Mikaleh said, only half paying attention to the scruffy man. She scanned the rest of the stragglers, looking for the Traveler.
“Well, whatever your situation, you’ll want to be sure you have some of my world-famous husk repellent in your inventory,” the shabby man said. “Made from the most exotic herbs and balms. A mystical recipe as old as the Storm itself. Which is not that old, but still.”
“Uh-huh,” Mikaleh said doubtfully.
“In fact,” the pitchman continued, “I’m wearing some right now. And look. Not a husk in sight. Who could argue with those results?”
“Look, we’re not interested in any husk repellent right now,” Mikaleh said. “We’re actually looking for a person. I used to see him around here in the early days, right after the Storm hit. He was old and he used to wear a long gray overcoat, and people called him the Traveler. He told stories. Do you know anybody like that?”
“Well, sure I know him,” the shabby man said. “I … I just have to remember where. It’s such a challenge to jog my memory these days. Something in the Storm has made me more forgetful than I used to be. If only I had something that would assist me. Some supplies or weapons, for example, might help me to think. Or one of those cool katana swords your friend has. That would really aid my memory.”
Sammy’s face showed that he was horrified by this notion. He took a couple of steps backward.
“Wait,” said Janet. “How is a ninja sword going to help you thi—Ooooh! You want a bribe. Now I’ve got it.”
“Let’s call it a ‘donation,’” the man said. “Seems more tasteful that way. I find couching things in the right words can go a long way toward making folks receptive. Like giving me a bribe. Which you should do right now.”
Suddenly, a high—almost squeaky—voice said: “Don’t you listen to him!”
Mikaleh looked up. A much-younger tramp was approaching. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, yet he had the world weary manner of a much-older person. Mikaleh always felt sorry for youngsters, because they had so little memory of life before the Storm. But this youngster didn’t seem to be spending any time feeling sorry for himself. He brushed past the scruffy man as though he were there to take charge.
“Don’t listen to this one,” the boy said. “He knows where the Traveler is just as sure as that bottle of old skin lotion he found is going to keep husks away. Which is not at all.”
The scruffy man appeared defensive.
“If my lotion—I mean, husk repellent—doesn’t work, then why’re there no husks around?”
The boy replied skeptically: “If it does work, then why are you always the first to run sprinting inside the barricades when the husks do attack.”
“You can never be too careful,” the scruffy man replied brightly, with the verbal dexterity of a true confidence man.
“Seriously, don’t listen to him,” the boy said to Mikaleh. “The Traveler was here. I know the one you mean. But he’s not around now.”
“Shhh,” said the scruffy man. “You’re going to fudge the deal.”
The boy seemed to ignore this, and kept talking.
“The Traveler left a while ago. He was always coming and going. But a few weeks ago, we heard he was headed for the survivor settlement in North Canny Valley.”
Mikaleh had heard of this settlement. It was a dangerous outpost. It had no neighbors, a faulty shield system, and was constantly being overrun by hordes of slavering husks. It was not a place to go if longevity was your goal.
“Why would he go there?” Mikaleh asked.
“Why does that guy do anything?” said the youngster. “He’s as confusing as he is crazy. But there are times when he’s not so crazy. Like he’ll say things that seem totally nuts—like they make no sense at all—but then they turn out to be true.”
“That sounds like you actually do know him,” Mikaleh said. “I’m inclined to believe you. Thanks. Here, I think that you deserve a reward.”
Mikaleh reached into her inventory and pulled out a jug of Slurp Juice with a large cork stopper in the top.
“Wow!” said the boy, happily accepting it.
“Use it whenever you get in a jam,” Mikaleh said.
Then she turned to the scruffy man. “As for you, you can have an apple.”
The man cocked his head to the side and stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. His expression said that an apple wasn’t so bad for a few minutes of grifting.
“But it comes with the condition that I want you to stop trying to cheat people, and earn an honest living instead,” Mikaleh added, holding out the shiny red fruit.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” the scruffy man said with a rueful smile. “No apple is worth that.”
“Suit yourself,” Mikaleh said.
She put the apple back into her inventory. The man in the dirty tuxedo walked back to the other hobos at the back of the strip mall, and sat down on the grass.
“North Canny Valley Outpost, eh?” Mikaleh said. “That’s a pretty grim place, but if that’s where we’ve got to go, then so be it.”
“I actually think Canny Valley is beautiful this time of year,” said Janet. “The Storm has pretty well messed up the seasons, so really, it’s beautiful all the time now. But that’s not a bad way for things to be. If you can ignore the sudden and vigorous husk attacks, it’s a very pretty place.”
“I just wonder what the Traveler is doing there,” Mikaleh said.
“Yeah,” offered Sammy. “I can think of more dangerous outposts, but there aren’t many.”
Then Mikaleh said: “If life has taught me anything—especially life during the Storm—it’s that sometimes you have to have a little bit of trust to get by. I’m going to trust that the Traveler has a reason for doing what he does. For the moment, we’ve got to let that be enough.”
Mikaleh turned back to the boy, who was peering excitedly through the glass sides of the jug of Slurp Juice.
“Did the Traveler say anything about what route he was taking? Was he making other stops, or was he going straight to North Canny Valley?”
“Straight there was how I heard it,” said the boy. “But with the Traveler, you never really know, do you?”
“That’s absolutely right,” Mikaleh said. “You don’t.”
CHAPTER SIX
The sun shone down hard in Canny Valley, because it always did. Mikaleh struggled to think of any other place where it was more reliably hot, dry, and sunny. Maybe, in the time before the Storm, Sedona, Arizona, had been something like it. Mikaleh could remember traveling there with her parents on vacation as a little girl. It was possible that Canny Valley actually was Sedona, Mikaleh reasoned. When the Storm had come, the network of places left untouched had become changed and hard to identify. Different locales had been smooshed together. Now and then you might see a leftover signpost showing the name of a town, but so many towns had the same name. Which had been which? The electronics that humans had grown so accustomed to using to track their movements had all ceased to function normally. Physical maps, when you could still find them, were all wrong now.
Sometimes Mikaleh wondered how exactly the Storm had moved parts of the maps closer together. Was their new “known world” a sort of Pangea combining different lands and places in some entirely new way?
It often felt like it.
As Mikaleh led her squad into Canny Valley, she was unable to tell if the mesas and rock formations were the same ones she might have seen so many years ago in Arizona, or if they were something entirely new.
They prepared to enter a crevasse that would take them between two impressive rock formations. Suddenly, Janet piped up.
“Do you think you would still recognize the Traveler? I’m not sure I would.”
“I mean, I think so,” said Mikaleh. “I didn’t used to pay that much attention to him. But he was sort of oddly distinctive.”
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Janet agreed. “Quite distinctive indeed.”
It was near to noon—not quite the hottest part of the day in Canny Valley, but close to it. The squad kept their eyes on the sky, hoping some of the intermittent cloud cover might chance to settle above them for a while. It was very dry and very warm.
During one of these hopeful surveys of the near horizon, Sammy began pointing.
“Hey,” he said. “Do you guys see that? There’s like a … flashing way at the top of that rock formation over there.”
The squad stopped and looked. Mikaleh would not have called it a “flashing” exactly, but something at the top of a rocky hill certainly glinted and glimmered when it caught the noonday sun. In another situation, Mikaleh might have been concerned that it could be the sun’s rays catching the scope of a sniper rifle. There were no survivors in the immediate area, however. And the shimmering wasn’t quite right for a sniper’s scope.
