The Biting Sands

by Doug C. Souza

Doug C. Souza has always had a love for the art of storytelling. His favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy, but he enjoys a good yarn of any variety. His story “Mountain Screamers” was published in Asimov’s and received an honorable mention to be included in The Year’s Best Science Fiction 2014. Doug teaches in Modesto, California, where he lives with his wonderful wife and daughter. You can find him at dougcsouza.com.

The Haze stays low to the earth as it hunts. Reaching out with wispy limbs, the amber mist rolls across the plain. Still miles away, it has not sensed me yet. But I know the Haze will come for me. And I know I can’t escape.

Will the monstrous cloud devour me in one fell swoop? Or will it drain me in slow pulses?

No one ever returns from the Haze.

Well, they return, but not with life in their eyes.

I suck in a deep breath while the air around me is clean. Early morning sun warms the ground and nourishes the Haze. The deadly cloud slows as it nears a herd of grazing sheep at the dry creek bed. It lingers among the ignorant animals and then floats away.

The Haze only feeds on people—and it won’t settle for anything less.

I untie the cord across the satchel at my hip and reach inside. My heart skips a beat, and I brace for the Haze. My breath shakes.

The cows just beyond the fences stir but do not panic. The Haze will pass them by, too. Then it will pass through the rows of apple trees and the fields of yams.

The air is different up here than underground—not rich with the scent of earth and life. I can taste the emptiness as I breathe it in.

My crooked leg burns from my trek below, but I will not crouch. Falling to my knees and crying is not for me. Sha-shen will be remembered for her bravery if nothing else.

I’m being dramatic. Well, heroes are dramatic.

The magistrate hesitated after he had recited the terms for my sentence. My refusal to drink the mind-numbing elixir made him uneasy. His eyes searched me, wondering if reiteration was necessary. Few “afflicted” or “damaged” refused the stupefying syrup before exile.

“The drink will ease the pain up there,” the magistrate explained while his soft hand slid the vial forward.

“No thank you,” I said.

“Very well.” He shrugged, waving me along.

“Did you read my Repentance?” I asked.

He glanced at the stack of scrolls and rolled his eyes. He waved me away again, this time in quick motions like I was some pesky gnat.

I didn’t budge. “My Repentance,” I insisted. “Please take a moment to consider—”

His neck became blotchy and red. “How dare you?” he spat. “To imply—” The oil-lamps in the lower chambers were dim, but I saw his neck vein pulsing.

“I can aid in the lower rivers. I have developed plans for better pumps to the surface. Pumps that work through a series of wheels and pulleys, like in the tram system—” I leaned over the short table separating us and pointed at the scrolls just inches from his hand. “It’s all there. I can teach the pipe-smiths. I can stay and help.”

“You have been sentenced,” the magistrate said, grabbing my Repentance and shoving it aside. “Damaged,” he muttered.

“You are wrong!” I fell forward onto the table.

The magistrate looked away and simply crossed off my name. His hand shook as he made a jagged line.

“Send her out!” he yelled, glaring at my warped hand and crooked leg. “Bring in the next.”

Jaggers, the guard assigned to escort me, grunted and pulled me away. The vial filled with the elixir stood in a row with the others. Many pleaded for their lives the way I had. So clever, Sha-shen, putting your diagrams for the lower rivers and irrigation system in your written testimony, I scolded myself. If only he had taken a moment to read over my Repentance. If only someone had—they’d see I could contribute.

Jaggers nudged me out of the chamber-room. His frown glared down as his large frame loomed above mine. The next of the condemned limped forward with his escort in tow. Like me, he wore an elegant robe donated by the Regulator Office. On him it covered a withering body. On me, the thin fabric draped across me like a breeze. The finest material in all of Spesterra. I hated it—a sad gift to ease the Regulators’ guilt.

Or did anyone feel even a sliver of guilt about sending “non-contributors” topside?

“What’re you thinking, Sha-shen?” Jaggers asked as we climbed the stairs to the upper passageways. He carried the gas-lantern a bit lower to read my face like a corridor map.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t trust you to think ‘nothing.’” Two days ago Jaggers first showed up at my door. I knew what was happening before he finished explaining: the days were warming, and I was going topside. The years of foolishly hoping it wouldn’t happen to me were over.

He peered at me. “Why didn’t you take the soother? I mean, even after he ignored your pleas.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and stopped to catch my breath at one of the guardrails near the pathway edge. We hadn’t gone far, but the day and sentencing had taken its toll. My crooked leg ached. “I just...” I couldn’t answer him. Instead, I gazed at the underground river far below. The water’s sloshing echoed up the rocky walls. I pictured the wheel in my mind’s eye as it turned in the water, pushing a separate pipeline to the irrigation lines. The pump wouldn’t replace the pipe-laborers entirely, but it would help ease their burden. My wheel and pump design could even eliminate the need for the storage tanks and reservoirs throughout the mid- and upper-levels of underground Spesterra.

To keep truth, the notion of going to the surface sober first entered my mind as a scientific endeavor: What would it be like to encounter the Haze with all my mental facilities intact?

Jaggers shrugged and guided me toward the tram docks. Onlookers moved out of our way. The condemned were feared more than the sick. The sick might heal.

Jaggers put a hand under my armpit and led me up the steps to the wooden and metal cage. He opened the lift door, handed me the lantern, and cranked us upward. The tram swayed. I snaked my clawed hand through a handhold and held the metal bar under my elbow. Ropes and pulleys squeaked; for a moment I wished the whole thing would just crash down.

Didn’t matter. In two days, I’d be heading to the surface.

I knew better than to consider fighting the Haze. Like all Spesterra citizens, I snuck glimpses of the Haze devourings in my youth through surface-side windows. Even people numbed by the elixir flailed their arms or kicked and screamed when the Haze encompassed them.

To no effect.

The hungry mist claimed all within minutes, whether they were exiled in a group of twenty or two.

Except Rafe: he lasted the longest. The clever idiot had wrapped a scarf around his head; he even stole a pair of goggles from one of the maintenance sub-levels.

He didn’t fight but stood amidst the thick cloud, observing. Being off-kilter like me—except he had two crooked legs—the Regulator Office left him outside after his mind was taken. They didn’t need his body. Cursed to roam aimlessly until his body withered and fell.

Once the Haze retreated back into the distant mountains, able-bodied folk were brought back inside. Docile and obedient, they made perfect laborers. Would my drone body be welcomed back, or would they leave me out there to rot?

I shook away the images—no point living the topside nightmare until exile. As one damaged, I hadn’t thought about facing the Haze since childhood. Somehow, I had tucked it into the back of my mind.

“Hold,” Jaggers said, grabbing my arm.

My fourth mother was waiting at the end of the stairwell. Her eyes burned. They held the light of a rescuer.

The Haze grows transparent as it arrives. Its pace slows and stretches into thin threads as it senses me.

Tree branches from the east orchard crinkle as a breeze kicks up. A lone bird drifts overhead. For a moment, I’m tempted to hobble over to the yam rows and pull a couple. No one could stop me from enjoying a fresh tuber.

A trickle of sweat stings my eye. I blink it away and then stare up after the bird drifting high above. The sky, the blue, I had almost forgotten to gaze at the blue. As an older child, I had realized I’d be sent to the ground, and I swore to look up at the unfiltered blue sky.

The little we see through the surface-side windows in Spesterra do not compare in the least. The glass is thick and warped.

A smile hits me unaided. An electricity trickles across my arms. I shake it away, worried that the Haze is mussing my mind. Altering it already.

No, it’s just the sky.

The Haze is still several lengths away, folding and unfolding on itself.

Is this why you covered your face, Rafe, and didn’t succumb to the Haze like all the others? Did you want to soak in as much as possible before the Haze took you?

You looked so silly in that scarf and goggles you had snuck out. But I knew you were being brave. You were a hero.

To think, the farmers and land workers visit the landside regularly. They till the dirt and sow the seeds when the Haze is absent. Do they know how lucky they are? The Regulators say we live underground because the Haze won’t descend below the dirt-line. But now I understand that merely surviving underground is not enough for life.

I also understand why the farmers are sworn to keep silent about the topside. If more people knew how wonderful it is, they’d demand to come up.

I search the horizon for the surface-side windows and find the lengths of glass reflecting the sunlight. It’s difficult to see, but I can make out spectral forms moving behind the windows—I feel eyes on me.

Time to get to work.

My good hand wraps around the glass within my satchel. A moment of doubt taunts me. What if I look silly? What if they think I’m trying to fight the Haze?

No.

I’m a hero, and it’s a good plan.

The Haze circles me, closing the gaps. The blue is swallowed by golden brown.

“A friend,” I said, pulling out of Jagger’s grip and lumbering up the last few steps.

“Five minutes, for rest. Then we go.” He remained close behind me.

My fourth mother was not a threat to him. Far older than me, she was nearly all gray. She reached for my good hand and guided me to the nearest bench. Her flesh was soft in my palm.

She pulled me into a hug. My fourth mother was very tactile, never shying away from her wards. Even my being sixteen seasons, she made me feel like a lamb. In her arms, I felt her strength course through me.

“When?” she asked. We sat near the back of the cable-tram port.

A mid-level digger slid farther down the long bench. He wasn’t bothered by me. He was eyeing Jaggers. No one enjoyed random encounters with people from the Regulator Office.

“Two days,” I said, my good foot absentmindedly drawing a circle in the dirt.

My fourth mother tenderly smothered my drawing with her foot. She grabbed my face in her hands and forced me to meet her eyes. “Well, Sha-shen, then you have just over a day to think of something.”

“A plan,” I said with a laugh and pulled away.

We sat in silence for several heartbeats before she said, “Yes, a plan.” Her tone was not pleasant. She surreptitiously reached into her dress pocket and pulled out an oval piece of smooth glass. “Remember this?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Such an odd endeavor for a young one,” she said, shaking her head. “Wanting to create a bent piece of glass to look through.”

“So?”

“You’re something unique, Sha-shen. I just want you to know that. In all my years serving as a caretaker, I never encountered a child so determined.” She handed me the oval glass. “Find a way out of this.”

Jaggers stepped in, grabbed the oval glass, and separated us, “What’re you trying to do? ‘Find a way out of this’?” he muttered. “Get!”

My fourth mother shot up and backed away. “Don’t waste a second.”

“Get!” Jaggers barked.

She scowled at him and then left. For a second, I believe I saw my escort flinch under my fourth mother’s glare.

Jaggers was not happy as he led me away. “Should report her,” he kept mumbling. “Should have her fined, something.” Poor Jaggers was wrestling with his conscience; reporting my fourth mother might land her in exile, and no one wanted to live with condemning anyone to that fate.

“She kids ’round,” I offered, shuffling toward the living levels. The condensation on the rock walls was rich. The warming days across the surface above brought forth water from the rock walls and ceilings below in Spesterra. Other condemned prayed for a storm to come and scare the Haze away. I knew better: the sky-watchers are trained to know how long a heat spell will remain. “She means nothing by it,” I told Jaggers.

He grunted as we rounded the bend to my level. Soon, he’d lock me in my apartment.

I tried again as we reached the main corridor, “In two days’ time, it won’t matter, huh?” People hugged the edge of the corridor as we strolled down the center. My crooked leg continued to burn from all the climbing; I didn’t give a hint, though.

Jaggers slowed his pace, nodded, and we went the rest of the way in silence. Such a good-looking man. I had seen his wife, Carleine. She was as beautiful as he was handsome. Did she understand the strain he was under? Did his kids run up to him and make him forget for a while? Were any of his kids “damaged”? Would he see them go someday?

Sheesh, Sha-shen, gotta warp even your vague thoughts into eerie dismay.

Another of the condemned came our way. An older gentleman surrounded by family. A line of drool hung from his chin. The old man’s guard trailed far behind the group. I caught a whiff of their conversation—they were reviewing property rights. The old man didn’t seem to have much, but whatever he owned, it was being fought for.

I recognized Venna, a fellow tanner and seamstress. She glanced my way but quickly averted her eyes. Her family did not barter any goods to allow their elder to die peacefully in Spesterra. The drooling old man would not live out his days naturally.

“We’re here,” I told Jaggers as we reached my door. He too was eavesdropping on the passing group and got lost in their peckings. He shook it away and turned to face me.

He reached in his pocket and removed the smooth oval of glass and asked, “What is this?”

“Curiosity,” I said with a shrug.

Jaggers held the piece in his giant fingers, peering at me and waiting for more of an explanation.

“I was eleven seasons,” I explained as I leaned against the doorframe to my apartment, the day’s weight catching up with me. “We had pulled apart a goat’s eye during a regimen course—”

Jaggers cringed at this.

I continued: “Well, to learn about the workings...part of the eye had this oval type of lens, but bulbous like it had swelled.”

Jaggers frowned, “And you thought to make one? Why?”

I closed my eye and rubbed my finger across my eyelid, “I noticed we have the same oval piece in our own eyes, and was curious about what would happen if I held a larger piece and looked through it. My fourth mother showed me how to shape and polish burning glass.”

Jaggers held the glass to his eye. “It’s odd.”

“Hold it a bit farther.” I stepped forward to show him. “Adjust it until you see the image grow.”

He did so, studying the back of his hand. “Hmm,” he grunted as he opened my door and ushered me inside.

Jaggers didn’t say goodbye, just set the oval glass on a shelf and shut the door.

Alone inside my apartment, I lay down and stretched my weary bones across my pallet, grateful for the respite. I kept the gown on—the accursed thing was comfortable.

My fourth mother would be expecting me to devise some glorious plan of escape. Just over a day to come up with something. Escape where? Spesterra is a giant tomb with nowhere to hide, not some underground metropolis, as the Regulator Office would have us believe.

Like all my mothers, she praised my analytical mind. Unlike my other mothers, she never scolded me for questioning everything. Never told me it was a waste of time for someone like me to try so hard. “Damaged” don’t get assigned any of the challenging tasks to improve development.

In two days my scientific mind won’t matter. It’ll be nothing but a haze of the Haze.

I laughed in my empty room.

Why did I opt out of the elixir? Why not just go out numb? Maybe my body wasn’t the only thing damaged about me.

I pulled up my blanket, but the thing caught on the pallet edge, and its worn threads tore right in half. The thing had barely held together anyway. I sighed as I pinched the wispy material between my good thumb and finger. At least I won’t have to peddle for a new one.

Funny. Staring dumbly at my ragged old blanket in self-pity and blowing away the drifting pieces of lint, it came to me. Fourth mother would’ve been proud: it had taken only a bit over an hour.

I pulled off the stupid gown and tossed it at the door. After massaging life back into my sore joints, I grabbed my longshirt and leggings and got dressed.

The Haze has closed the circle around me. I take a deep breath and fight the terrors that bubble in my stomach.

The good thing about a clawed hand is it serves well as a hook when needed. I hang the satchel from it as I dig past my glass jars for the gob of honeycomb wax. I pull a plug, break it apart, and stuff it into my ears and nose.

The Haze follows me as I move left to right.

I grab a jar from the satchel and unhinge the lid. Three more jars clink in my satchel.

My lips are close to sealed as I breathe. My heart’s racing. That doesn’t help.

The sun doesn’t shine as bright. The amber cloud has closed in.

The desire to run pell-mell and try to break through is strong, but I know better.

I wait to strike.

After waiting until night gave way to early morning, I placed torn shreds of the gown and parchment at the bottom of my apartment door. It didn’t take long to ignite—the flint and steel sparks glowed bright. The flames lit quickly and didn’t need much fanning.

I prayed Jaggers was on time with my breakfast. After feeding me, he was assigned to take me on my final rounds for good-byes. He’d tuck me in again, and the following day we’d join the rest of the non-contributors to leave for the surface when the sun was at its highest.

“Help!” I yelled. Smoke covered my floor.

My plan required that I sneak out and make my way topside alone and with my gear. The Regulator Office demands that we go barefoot in only our fine robe. Robes that are stripped from our bodies after the Haze consumes our minds.

“Help!” I tried again.

Nothing.

I pounded the locked door. “Jaggers! Jaggers!”

The smoke rose to my knees. I pushed my face to the small opening between the door and its frame.

Finally, the door shuddered and then flew open. I scuttled back. Wide-eyed, Jaggers scanned the room, realizing there was no great blaze.

I cupped the tanning awl in my good hand and rushed toward him as he stomped out the meager flames.

Hating to do it, I reached around and struck him in the left buttock.

“Ah, no!” he cried, cupping the wound.

I stumbled by him the best I could.

Jaggers dove and locked onto my ankle; we both tumbled.

I tried to kick free, but my crooked leg flopped around, missing the mark. One kick brushed his wrist.

The fire thinned and then died away completely.

“My ass! You stabbed my ass?” he groaned.

Tears blurred my vision.

Jaggers chuckled, “Oh, Sha-shen.” He released my ankle and sighed. “Best of chance to you.”

I hoisted myself up and hobbled away.

The Haze bites into my skin. I lunge into it with the first glass jar and scoop the air. There’s a pinching sensation, like a hot poker, down my left cheek. My eyes are squeezed shut, but it doesn’t matter, the Haze digs in.

I close the first glass jar and trap in it a whiff of the Haze. I shove the jar in my satchel and pull out a second.

The Haze has solidified parts of itself into wormy tendrils. They pull at the wax and cloth compound I’d stuffed in my ears and nose.

I keep swiping at my face wherever I feel the prickling, but it’s like trying to stop a swarm of fiery ants. A lost memory of an old woman clawing at her face resurrects itself in my mind’s eye—an image I had forgotten but which now comes at me with a fury, her white hair yanked away with strings of Haze as it pushed in relentlessly. Other memories of terrified victims hit me like a barrage of nightmares. Clear memories that I had somehow stuffed deep inside.

I claw my face, too, but I’m holding something. The jar. I shake my face and back away. I duck down and crawl on my knees and elbows. I close the jar around a thick chunk of Haze—my clawed hand stretching and squeezing more than ever in my life—and grab another.

The Haze follows me like a shadow, gripping onto the back of my neck. Pushing. Pushing.

The glass jars are filled, they clank in my satchel as I stumble on.

I swipe in a final bit of Haze and keep the last jar locked in my good hand. I lie low to the ground and open my eyes fully so I can examine the contents. It burns, but I have to see the Haze up close. The scientist in me can’t resist: I have to know what I’ve done, if anything.

The Haze inside the jar thrashes around angrily. It bangs against the glass. Worried that it might get out, I get to my feet and rush to the yam rows to bury the jars in my satchel, hoping the moist dirt will help keep the contents trapped inside.

A calming caress washes over me, entreating me to stop and relax.

I don’t.

The Haze is manipulating me, worming into my thoughts, soothing me.

A comforting touch at my feet tempts me to stop. I ignore the pleasant sensation and push on. The mollifying touch under my skin turns into a cramp. The stab starts in my calf and runs up my leg. Being damaged, I’m no stranger to my muscles being twisted.

I’m not far from the yam rows, but my good leg is growing sluggish. I can no longer feel my crooked leg.

The surface-side windows blink in the distance. By now, many are watching me—only me alone and not among a group. They have realized I have come on my own. They must see I have collected and trapped the Haze in a jar.

They see I am the first of Spesterra to do so.

Are you cheering me on, Rafe, the way I cheered you? I’m sorry I doubted you. My mind filled with acid when you finally collapsed and succumbed to the Haze’s onslaught. I swore I’d never keep hope in my heart again when I saw you fall.

Someone laughed during your death.

I dug my fingernails across the man’s cheek.

They had to drag me away.

The Haze continues to push into me, but small clouds of it have gathered around my satchel.

I strive on. My bones burn as if I have no skin to protect them. The Haze is enraged; I feel the potency of its anger.

I reach the first lip of the yam rows. My good hand and my clawed hand dig into the earth.

The Haze’s anger shifts; now it’s desperate. I can sense the change.

I shove the satchel into the earth and push dirt over it.

Oh, Rafe, I can hear you cheering for me from wherever you are.

The Haze panics. Tendrils leave my skin, the movements anxious as they hover over the mound of dirt.

I blink away a torrent of tears and wipe my eyes. With what I have left of my soul, I want to see.

I set my last Haze-filled jar atop the mound where I buried the rest within the satchel.

An errant thought strikes me: I pull out the oval glass from my pocket and peer through it into the jar.

The Haze inside the jar has become bits of dust.

I bring the jar and seeing glass to my eye—I have to examine. I have to know.

Tiny machines break away from one another and convulse. Some scurry around aimlessly before dropping like dying insects.

In a craze, I grab the jar and taunt the Haze with it as frail tendrils return to tear at me.

“Is this all you are? Tiny machines that die when separated?” I tease the Haze.

The Haze spears its tendrils into the earth after my satchel but pulls back.

They can’t get to the jars! I push more dirt on top and mock the Haze. I know the scientists and scholars of Spesterra will relish this information. I have lost, but they will learn. I have contributed.

I set my oval looking glass on the mound of dirt, marking it, and then I throw the jar filled with the Haze into the distance.

The Haze shrieks and chases after it!

The remaining tendrils are pulled from my body and race after the discarded jar.

In that bloody moment, I can feel Jaggers, my fourth mother, and others all cheering me on. I want badly to lift my body up and stand as a hero stands, but strength has left me.

Maybe the jar broke when I threw it, maybe it didn’t. I don’t care; I just wanted a reprieve. A last few breaths to rest before I become nothing.

Water rains down.

I blink to the blue sky in disbelief.

Someone from below has opened the irrigation lines. Someone has deemed me worth saving.

Water soaks my skin.

The Haze retreats farther.

I hear laughter and realize it’s coming from me. A stitch in my side flares as I laugh, but I can’t stop.

Drops patter in the quickly forming puddles.

I’ll tell the Regulators what I did, how I trapped the Haze. I’ll help them make plans to fight it.

But with the others I’ll share the secret beauty of topside. I’ll light fires within all their hearts. I’ll stoke the fire that started with you, Rafe.