56
• Silo 18 •
THE DIM-TIME approached while they arranged desks and the Crow resumed her singing. Allie told him a curfew had been announced, and so Mission lost hope that the others would show up that night. They pulled out mats from the cubbies to rest and plan, and decided to give the others until daybreak. There was much Mission wanted to ask the Crow, but she seemed distracted, her thoughts elsewhere, possessed with a joyousness that made her giddy.
Frankie felt certain he could get them through security and deeper into IT if only he could reach his father. Mission told them how well he’d been able to move about with the whites on. Maybe he could reach Frankie’s dad in a pinch. Allie produced fresh fruits harvested from her plot and passed them around. The Crow drank one of her dark green concoctions. Mission grew restless.
He wandered out to the landing, torn between waiting for the others and his anxiety to get going. For all he knew, Rodny was being marched up to his death already. Cleanings tended to settle people down, to follow bouts of unrest, but this was unlike any of the spates of violence he had seen before. This was the burning his father spoke of, the embers of distrust and crumbling trade that jumped up all at once. He had seen this coming, but it had approached with the swiftness of a knife plummeting from the up top.
Out on the landing, he heard the sounds of a mob echoing from far below. Holding the landing rail, he could feel the hum of marching boots. He returned to the others and said nothing of it. There was no reason to suspect those boots were coming for them.
Allie looked as though she’d been crying when he got back. Her eyes were moist, her cheeks flushed. The Crow was telling them an Old Time story, her hands painting a scene in the air.
‘Is everything all right?’ Mission asked.
Allie shook her head as if she’d rather not say.
‘What is it?’ he said. He held her hand, heard the Crow speaking of Atlantis, another tale of the crumbling and lost city of magic beyond the hills, a bygone day when those ruins shone like a wet dime.
‘Tell me,’ he said. He wondered if the stories were affecting her the way they sometimes did him, making her sad and not knowing why.
‘I didn’t want to say anything until after,’ she cried, fresh tears welling up. She wiped them away and the Crow fell silent, her hands dropping into her lap. Frankie sat quietly. Whatever it was, the two of them knew as well.
‘Father,’ Mission said. It had to do with his father. He was gone, he knew it instantly. Allie was close to his father in a way that Mission had never been. And suddenly, he felt a powerful regret for ever having left home. While she wiped her eyes, the words unable to form on her trembling lips, Mission imagined himself on his hands and knees, in the dirt, digging for forgiveness.
Allie bawled, and the Crow hummed a tune of aboveground days. Mission thought of his father, gone, all he longed to say, and wanted nothing more than to hurl himself at the posters on the walls, to tear them down and rip to shreds their urgings to go and be free.
‘It’s Riley,’ Allie finally said. ‘Mish, I’m so sorry.’
The Crow ceased her humming. All three of them watched him.
‘No,’ Mission whispered.
‘You shouldn’t have told him—’ Frankie began.
‘He ought to know!’ Allie demanded. ‘His father would want him to know.’
Mission gazed at a poster of green hills and blue skies. That world blurred with tears as surely as it might with dust. ‘What happened?’ he whispered.
She told him that there’d been an attack on the farms. Riley had begged to go and help fight, had been told no, and had then disappeared. He’d been found with a knife from the kitchen still clutched in his hands.
Mission stood and paced the room, tears splashing from his cheeks. He shouldn’t have left. He should have been there. He hadn’t been there for Cam, either. Death preceded him in all the places he couldn’t be. He had done the same to his mother. And now the end was coming for them all.
A rumble grew from the landing and filled the hallway – the sound of approaching boots. Mission wiped his cheeks. He had given up on any of the others coming and thought it might be Security with their guns. They would ask him where his own gun was before realising he was an impostor, before shooting them all.
He pushed the door shut, saw that the Crow had no lock on the thing, and wedged a desk under the handle. Frankie hurried to Allie, told her to get behind the Crow’s desk. He grabbed the back of the Crow’s wheelchair – the overhead wire swinging dangerously – but she insisted she could manage herself, that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Mission knew better. This was Security coming for them – Security or some other mob. He’d travelled the stairwell, knew what was out there.
There was a knock on the door. The handle jiggled. The boots outside quietened as they gathered around. Frankie pressed his finger to his lips, his eyes wide. The wire overhead creaked as it swung back and forth.
The door budged. Mission hoped for a moment that they would go away, that they were just making their rounds. He thought about hiding under the sheets used to cover the desks, but the thought came too late. The door was shoved open, a desk screeching as it skittered across the floor. The first person through was Rodny.
His appearance was as sudden and jarring as a slapped cheek. Rodny wore white overalls with the creases still in them. His hair had been cut short, his face newly shaved, a nick on his chin.
Mission felt as though he were staring into a mirror, the two of them in costume. More men in white crowded behind Rodny in the hallway, rifles in hand. Rodny ordered them back and stepped into the room where all those empty desks lay neatly arranged.
Allie was the first to respond. She gasped with surprise and hurried forward, arms wide as if for an embrace. Rodny held up a palm and told her to stop. His other hand held a small gun, the same the deputies wore. His eyes were not on his friends but on the Old Crow.
‘Rodny—’ Mission began. His brain attempted to grasp his friend’s presence. They had all come together to rescue him, but he looked in little need of it.
‘The door,’ Rodny said over his shoulder.
A man twice Rodny’s age hesitated before doing as he was asked and pulling the door shut. This was not the demeanour of a prisoner. Frankie lurched forward before the door shut all the way, calling ‘Father!’ as if he’d seen his old man in the hall with the others.
‘We were coming for you,’ Mission said. He wanted to approach his friend, but there was something dangerous in Rodny’s eyes. ‘Your note—’
Rodny finally looked away from the Crow.
‘We were coming to help—’ Mission said.
‘Yesterday, I needed it,’ Rodny said. He circled around the desks, the gun at his side, his eyes flicking from face to face. Mission backed up and joined Allie in standing close to the Crow – whether to protect her or feel protected, he couldn’t say.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Mrs Crowe said with a lecturing tone. ‘This is not where your fight is. You should be hurting them.’ A thin finger pointed at the door.
The gun in Rodny’s hand rose a little.
‘What’re you doing?’ Allie asked, her wide eyes on the gun.
Rodny pointed at the Crow. ‘Tell them,’ he said. ‘Tell them what you’ve done. What you do.’
‘What’ve they done to you?’ Mission asked. His friend had changed. It was more than the haircut and uniform. It was in his eyes.
‘They showed me—’ Rodny swept his gun at the posters on the wall. ‘That these stories are true.’ He laughed and turned to the Crow. ‘And I was angry, just like you said I would be. Angry at what they did to the world. I wanted to tear it all down.’
‘So do it,’ the Crow insisted. ‘Hurt them.’ Her voice creaked like a door about to slam.
‘But now I know. They told me. We got a call. And now I know what you’ve been doing here—’
‘What’s this about?’ Frankie asked, still in the middle of the room. He moved towards the door. ‘Why is my father—’
‘Stay,’ Rodny told him. He pushed one of the desks out of the way and moved down the aisle. ‘Don’t you move.’ His gun swung from Frankie to the Crow, whose chair shivered in time with her palsied hand. ‘These sayings on the wall, the stories and songs – you made us what we are. You made us angry.’
‘You should be,’ she screeched. ‘You damn well should be!’
Mission moved closer to the Crow. He kept his eye on the gun. Allie knelt and held the old woman’s hand. Rodny stood ten paces away, the gun angled at their feet.
‘They kill and they kill,’ the Crow said. ‘And this will go the way it always has. Wipe it all clean. Bury and burn the dead. And these desks—’ Her arm shot up, her quivering finger aimed at the empty desks newly arranged. ‘These desks will be full again.’
‘No,’ Rodny said. He shook his head. ‘No more. It ends here. You won’t terrify us any more—’
‘What’re you saying?’ Mission asked. He stepped close to the Crow, a hand on her chair. ‘You’re the one with the gun, Rodny. You’re the one scaring us.’
Rodny turned to Mission. ‘She makes us feel this way. Don’t you see? The fear and hope go hand in hand. What she sells is no different than the priests, only she gets to us first. This talk of a better world. It just makes us hate this one.’
‘No—’ Mission hated his friend for uttering such a thing.
‘Yes,’ Rodny said. ‘Why do you think we hate our fathers? It’s because she makes us hate them. Gives us ideas to break free from them. But this won’t make it better.’ He waved his hand. ‘Not that it matters. What I knew yesterday had me terrified for my life. For all of us. What I know now gives me hope.’ His gun came up. Mission couldn’t believe it. His friend pointed the barrel at the Old Crow.
‘Wait—’ Mission raised a hand.
‘Stand back,’ Rodny said. ‘I have to do this.’
‘No!’
His friend’s arm stiffened. The barrel was levelled at a defenceless woman in a mechanical chair, the mother to them all, the one who sang them to sleep in their cribs and on their mats, whose voice followed them through their sha-dowing days and beyond.
Frankie shoved a desk aside and lurched towards Rodny. Allie screamed. Mission threw himself sideways as the gun roared and flashed. There was a punch to his stomach, a fire in his gut. He crashed to the floor as the gun thundered a second time, the Crow’s chair lurching to the side as a spasm gripped her hand.
Mission landed heavily, clutching his stomach. His hands came away sticky and wet.
Lying on his back, he saw the Crow slump over in her chair, a chair that no longer moved. Again, the gun roared. Needlessly. Her body twitched as it was struck. Frankie flew into Rodny and the two men went tumbling. Boots stormed into the room, summoned by the noise.
Allie was there, crying. She kept her hands on Mission’s stomach, pressing so hard, and looked back at the Crow. She wailed for them both. Mission tasted blood in his mouth. It reminded him of the time Rodny had punched him as a kid, only playing. They’d only ever been playing. Costumes and pretending to be their fathers.
There were boots everywhere. Shiny and black boots on some, scuffed with wear on others. Those who had fought before and those just learning.
Rodny appeared above Mission, his eyes wide with worry. He told him to hang in there. Mission wanted to say he’d try, but the pain in his stomach was too great. He couldn’t speak. They told him to stay awake, but all he’d ever wanted was to sleep. To not be. To not be a burden to anyone.
Hush my Darling, don’t you cry
I’m going to sing you a lullaby
Though I’m far away it seems
I’ll be with you in your dreams.
Hush my Darling, go to sleep
All around you angels keep
In the morn and through the day
They will keep your fears at bay.
Sleep my Darling, don’t you cry
I’m going to sing you a lullaby