She nodded her head quickly and then mentally scolded herself. Why was she being so foolish? He couldn’t see her any more than she could…
“Good. Shhhhh.”
After a while, Ocean’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She could make out the walls of the tunnel she was walking through; it was strange how she’d seen those disks in the streets every day of her life, and it had never occurred to her—not once—that there could actually be something down below.
What of this man? Now that she actually had time to think, she realized he wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. He was tall, strong—the sleeves of his shirt practically rippled with muscle when he moved. He was more like the way people used to be. Back before the Food Wars her father had sometimes told her about…
Oh God, what must he think of me? She was a walking skeleton, only one step removed from the rotters he’d saved her from. Her hair was sparse and thin, not all full and silky like his, she was caked with filth and she suspected that she probably smelled bad as she looked.
For some reason, these thoughts made her eyes burn with tears and she heard her Mama’s voice say, in the back of her mind: wasted water. That made it even worse. She wanted to slip away from the man’s grasp, to run so deep within these tunnels that he’d never be able to find her.
She wanted to curl up on a bed of dry leaves, and simply waste away.
He squeezed her hand gently and she was pulled along on a current that roiled with emotion. Everything had been so simple the day before. Life was hard, but at least it had made sense. Now, it seemed as if she had slipped into a bizarre dream where her heart and conscience fought one another in a battle for dominance. They exchanged blows so rapidly that it physically felt as if the world were spinning around her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, to praise her good fortune or damn herself.
None of this would have happened if Mama were still alive. She’d be laying in her room, perhaps playing with her collection of glass animals as she thought about her father; she’d wonder where the next meal would come from, how she would manage to find some clean water to ease the burning in her throat.
Instead, here she was, with the promise of food, of drink, of something other than the grimy rags that wrapped her wasted frame, and her mother was still back there, staring up with eyes that would never see again.
Ocean stopped as suddenly as if she’d been turned to stone; her stomach twisted into painful knots that seemed to climb into her chest and wrap around her heart. She pulled her hand away from the stranger, hugging herself as she doubled over. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that the tears which had been threatening to fall were forced out, and she began to shiver with delayed shock.
Mama is dead, truly and really dead. There was a tire iron sticking out of the side of her shattered skull and her blood was everywhere; on the ground, in her hair, on her clothes. Oh Jesus, Mama’s blood is on my clothes, and what if that means her ghost is here too, what have I done, Good Lord, what have I done? My own mother, I killed…
The stranger’s breath was warm in her ear and she felt herself pulled into his arms. He hugged her just like her Daddy used to, allowing her to bury her face into his chest as he stroked her hair and whispering the entire time. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe…”
She didn’t want to cry. Not in front of him, of all people. She tried to suck all the pain back inside her, to store it away in some dark and secret place within her soul. That only caused a low moan to tremble out of her throat, and she pressed herself even more tightly against the reassuring solidity of the man’s chest.
“That’s okay. Let it out, let it all out. That’s a good girl.”
It took a while, but eventually she composed herself. She wiped away the tears and snot with the hem of her shirt, trying to look anywhere but into his eyes when he asked if she was sure she was okay. She wanted to show him that she could be strong, too, that she wasn’t just some frightened little girl who’d foolishly wandered into a pack of rotters. They walked on in silence, with him leading her by the hand once more, and she taking in every detail of the journey. Every so often, they’d pass little rectangles of light, shining down from up near the ceiling. She knew what they were, of course. After heavy rains, she and her mother used to hold cans inside them, to collect the water that flowed down into the darkness. Even with that experience, she’d never thought to ask where the water they couldn’t catch went.
As they scurried through the tunnels and past the drains, she sometimes caught glimpses of feet. More like silhouettes, really; there wasn’t much daylight left on the surface and detail was washed out in the coming shadows. She knew instinctively what they were: rotters. And here they were, passing right underneath them… she’d had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling the first time this thought had bubbled up in her mind.
After what seemed an eternity of walking, Ocean become aware of a faint scent drifting though the darkened tunnel. The aroma immediately set off a rumbling in her stomach so loud that Corduroy must have heard it, for he started chuckling behind her. The smell was maddening and her mouth began to water as it grew in strength. They were cooking. Cooking meat. How long had it been since she’d had hot food? Six, seven moons maybe? She remembered losing the flint and how angry her mother had been with her. She spent days searching on hands and knees for that little stone, but it seemed the earth had opened up and swallowed it whole. From that point on, meat—when they were fortunate enough to find it—was raw and bloody.
“Just about there,” the stranger said. “In time for dinner, too.”
He wasn’t whispering anymore and Ocean had forgotten how
rich and deep his voice was; and now his words caused tiny shivers to tingle along her spine.
“I’ll need to introduce you, of course. What’s your name, darlin’?”
She couldn’t suppress the grin that spread across her face.
“Ocean.”
“Well, now… I think that’s just about the prettiest name I ever heard.”
Ocean felt like hiding her face within her hands and giggling but managed to resist the impulse.
“I’m Gauge. Corduroy, you’ve met already. There’s two more of us, Levi and Pebble. I think you’ll like Levi. She’s a little older than you, of course, but she’s a sweetheart.”
Ocean tasted a bitter flavor in her mouth and noticed that the muscles in her neck and shoulders had grown tense.
“She’s been with me since almost the beginning…”
“What about Pebble?” The words came out more quickly, and much more sharply, than Ocean had intended and she felt herself blush in the darkness. Corduroy snorted a laugh, but Gauge seemed unfazed by the question.
“Pebble? He’s… different. Doesn’t really talk much. Or at all, now that I really think about it, but I don’t think you two would have much in common. He’s just a little kid.”
Ocean felt as if her chest were inflating, smiled like she’d just seen the most beautiful rainbow on the most perfect of mornings. Just a little kid. She savored every syllable of the words, repeating them over and over in her mind. So he knew somehow, that she was a woman, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, he seemed to understand her in a way no one ever had.
Gauge led them through a gaping hole in a wall and Ocean suddenly found herself standing in a cavernous room. Square in shape, it had brick walls that reached up to touch a ceiling that seemed to curve gently inward like the inside of some massive dome. The top of the ceiling was so high that only the silhouettes of pipework could be glimpsed through a gloom that gradually darkened into a space as black as the night sky.