He felt a great tug from his legs to his arms, and his motion stopped. Gord’s ankles slipped from Moby’s grasp and his lower half hit the metal ground beneath him, causing a deep thud and clanging that reverberated all around. Gord was now face down, his arms over his head. While Moby re-focused on his feet, Gord made a quiet swipe with his bindings at the cutting edge before placing his now-loosened bundle back at the starting point of the jagged metal strut. He waited for Moby to do the rest of the work.
Moby breathed a frustrated sigh and grabbed Gord’s feet again, this time vigorously yanking and pulling at him. With each tug, the binding loosened further, and more of it was slashed by the sharp edge of the metal. Gord felt the big man wrap his arms around his legs and put all his weight into the task. Then his bindings fell away, and the force of Moby’s pull caused both men to become momentarily airborne. Moby let loose as he fell, like the great trees of the dead forest, pitching slowly at first and then faster until his massive frame crashed.
“Gods dammit, watch out,” demanded the scratchy voice. “Moby?”
Gord forced both eyes open now. With his hands free, he quietly unbound his ankles and then stood on unsteady legs, feeling somewhat weak, but free. The scratchy-voiced man, his back to Gord, was leaning over Moby, who seemed to have knocked himself out. Beside them was a work table with knives and saws and one large thigh bone of a man. Blood coated everything. A tub beside the table contained the freshly cut-up pieces of human flesh and bone. I would have been next!
Gord grabbed an ax, sticky with blood, and stalked over to the scratchy man. There was little time for the man to look surprised, and none for him to raise an alarm. Gord swung with all his might.
Turning to run, ax still glued to his hand, Gord took a moment to search. At the end of this long cylindrical room, by the open entrance, was a pile of bags, clothes, and other discarded belongings. Near the top he found his satchel. After a hasty look inside for his book, he threw the strap around him and sprinted out of the opening.
Looking back as he attempted to put some distance between himself and his captors, he took in the strange edifice. It was round and long, like a massive tree trunk lying on the ground, maybe only four arm-lengths high. It had a smooth, faded, white skin with blue and red colorings on it: letters that read “American.”
“Hey, who are you?” said a voice he passed.
Gord ignored him and others around him and continued running. He was in a village, nestled in a dead forest of tall, round, straight trees that bored holes into the bright sky above. He ran in no particular direction. Then, he realized most people paid no mind to him or his bloody ax. Either they thought him to be one of their own, or they were just plain indifferent to the cruel life around them. With that, he slowed down to a walk, trying to figure out where he was. The mountains poking through the trees looked similar to those he remembered before he was knocked out, yet different, like they were farther away. He just couldn’t get his bearing. He looked for a worn path where many before him would have traveled. That would lead him in a direction where he could get a better sense of where he was.
At a break in the tree line, he found himself at the bottom of a wide, inclined trail. Once he reached the top, he looked to the right where he noticed another large trail, empty of people, and going off into the distance, away from the mountains, to some flat plains. Based on the sun’s position, he guessed it was roughly in the direction he had come from before being knocked out. Looking the other way, in the distance, he saw a set of buildings surrounded by a wall, similar to the one he saw in front of the Cicada sign on the monument of stones. Could it be that easy? He marched along the tall trail, always watching.
He was once again both anxious and excited. He allowed himself to feel a little of the hope that this might truly be the end of his journey. His people were desperate as their water supplies were running so low from the many generations of drought. They needed to find an answer, knowing that their water could be gone in a year or sooner. Gord had volunteered for this journey, offering that Cicada might have their answer, hoping the secrets from his journal were true. He knew how difficult this journey would be. And now the future of all his people, numbering over one hundred now, was dependent upon the success of this mission. He didn’t want to fail them.
In little time, he found himself walking on a smaller trail to the north that went right toward the tall wall, ending at a gate. It was a well-worn passage way, with discarded pieces of other people’s lives tossed aside long ago in the deep depressions on either side of the trail. He was almost upon the large wall and a giant gate, not unlike the wall he had witnessed when he came across the Cicada sign. That was before the man they called Snort knocked him out and tried to make him their meal. This time, he was going to make sure he was on his guard. He approached the wall more slowly.
The detritus from previous travelers on both sides of the trail grew higher the closer he came to the gate. It was as if more and more people disposed of their cast-offs before entering this sanctuary. Until now, the layers of debris were not really visible, as the dip off the road was cavernous. Less than one hundred steps to the wall, the piles of debris were almost level in height with the path. He stopped when one of the rejects caught his attention. It was a strange mechanical contraption that reminded him of the transportation devices he had often seen in his travels, used during the Before Times a few generations ago. But this one had three wheels, not four. It appeared to be powered by a human traveler who would ride upon it. Each wheel was covered in small twig-like pieces; he remembered these were called “wires.” Attached to the back was some sort of container with two separate wheels, one on each side. They must have carried their belongings in this, behind them. The container was sticking straight up, bent at an unusual angle, as if it had fallen in or had been pushed off the side of the road. Piles of discarded wreckage surrounded both sides of it, but the container was sticking up and out of the mass. On the back of it was a well-worn but very readable plaque that bore the notation “CARR + MEL.”
Mechanical noises alerted him to the giant gate; they were sounds of movement.
Gord stared at the grand-looking gate, waiting for something to happen, clutching his ax tighter. Just then, he noticed something that felt out of place and odd to him. The wall was smoother than the one he remembered beyond the marker that told him he had found Cicada. Of course, he saw no marker on his approach to this wall. Also unusual was a thick tree trunk that rested against the wall directly to the left of the gate, as if it had been tossed there. Studying it he thought it might have been used in an attempt to scale the wall. Red patches, perhaps dried blood, spoke to its failure. Behind the thick tree trunk, on the wall, was a placard, its letters hidden, almost but not quite readable.
The gate burst open and a bright white luminescence poured out of the opening, as if a white sun actually rested on the other side of that gate. Gord looked up into the sky to make sure the sun was still where it belonged. A man’s silhouette appeared in the brightness, but he couldn’t look at it any more than he could look directly at the bright sun.
Forgetting his anxiety, and remembering the instructions from his father’s father, Stepha, he quickly put down the ax—he didn’t want to be mistaken for one of the people in the town nearby—and pulled from his satchel the book that held so much hope for him and his people. He hoisted it up, held it steady so that the now three silhouettes in the doorway could see it plainly.