Where were you when Suldana got shot?
Everyone here knows where they were, but you’ve got a raw, rotten hole in that memory of yours, right? You always do when bad things happen and you need to fess up to what went wrong.
Let’s see if we can jog that tongue of yours loose.
Suldana came down to me yesterday morning, sat with me over black coffee, asked me if I’d seen you. I said no. I always do.
Don’t look at me like that. No use getting her worked up. She told me she missed you—can’t imagine why she’d feel so low about it. I never miss you at all when you go scouting in the wasteland. I’m the one who taught you to ride that motorbike at the edge without drawing attention, you know, making sure you stay just out of range of the monsters peeling in from the black. I always kinda like the respite when you go off, and the extra rations. Never know when you’ll be back—three days, three weeks. I like the quiet.Suldana doesn’t.
More the fool, her.
So Suldana says to me she misses you and’s wondering about where you go when you leave her. I told her you have a hankering for the river and riding motorbikes. True enough, I guess. I tried to tide her over, but she asked who you went out riding with, and I told her. Yeah, shit, I told her about them. She got all white and her hands started shaking, y’know, like she does when she’s fit to scream. I stood up and tried to calm her down. But she wouldn’t drink anymore coffee.
She got up and went to the old radio, the one you and I cobbled together after the last junker came through, and I figured she was going to give the Call.
Yeah, you’re paying attention now, aren’t you? Huh. Well, I tried to stop her from calling, but by this time, the color was back in her cheeks. Those butternut-colored eyes of hers were all wide and glassy, and she had her voice raised, calling me all manner of nasty names, worse than you ever called me when we have our spats. She said I was trying to break you two up. Me, after all I’ve done for her.
I didn’t know what she was up to, yet. Maybe she didn’t either. The truth always comes as a shock to these women when they ask.
When I finally tell them.
Oh, keep drinking, you old sow. You’re too chicken to tell them. Someone has to. And it’s me. Always me. My burden. You leave that burden to all of us when you act like a dumb rich kid from some dead age.
She asked what was wrong with her, that you had to be out there with them instead of her. She said you didn’t write to her anymore. You only called when she cried out over the radio, yelling that she had some fool cause for you to take up. You only called when she told you about the monster inside of her, the one that’s gunning to take us all.
Maybe that’s all true. You don’t need to defend yourself to me. We’ve all done things we don’t care to name, let alone talk about. It’s how you survive after the fall of what you knew. You fuck like the world is ending, cause for each of us, it is, day by day. Every day is one day less you get. Might as well live it good, heh?
I threw out the coffee. The good shit, too, not that grimy shit you leave here after one of your rampages. I threw it out … and here I’m being honest, you know … I threw it out cause I didn’t want anyone to know she’d been with me before she made the Call. Didn’t want them to know it was me that set her off. I know what comes next when you make trouble.
My granddad said his father once told him an old story about this battle that goes on inside us all. He said there are two monsters in us, battling all the time. One is evil. It’s all that fear, anger, envy, regret, arrogance, and greed in the world. The other one is, I guess, what we’d call good. It’s compassion, peace, humility, kindness, and, I guess, generosity.
And of course, kids always ask, what do you do when these two monsters are battling it out inside of you, the way they battle it out there in the wasteland? Which monster wins?
My granddad, then, he’d always say, “The one you feed.”
Kids like that story. Sounds so simple. Do more of the good, less of the bad, and good will win. But that’s all gotten blurry out here, hasn’t it? I don’t know, say, if telling Suldana lies about you is feeding a good monster or a bad one. I feel like it’s both. And what then? Who wins?
So she puts out the Call.
Can you see it, then? Her rucked up against the tin drum in my kitchen where that radio sits, and me rinsing out the cups with sand, stacking them back on the counter with that old chipped china plate you found in Diego-sol-Rey before the last of the lights went out, and me humming, humming some nonsense tune of my granddad’s, like nothing is going to happen, like it’s all going to go on the way it was.
She was on that radio like it was a pipeline to God or something, and I’m standing there, just waiting. Humming.
Waiting for the monster.
She Called … and Called …
… and there was only static. Static pissing and hissing like rain.
I didn’t let out my breath til she switched the radio off, though.
“Nobody out there,” I said. “You won’t find her out on the channels, not if she’s scavenging in the wasteland. You should let her do what she wants. Accept who she is. I did. A long time ago. It suits who I am, too. If it’s not the right fit for you … you just gotta move on.”
“You don’t understand,” Suldana said and her little papery hands were shaking like the ass-end of a bait dog. “I’ve given up everything for her … I’ve sacrificed so much out here. She can’t be doing what you say she is.”
I was going to ask her, but you know how I am—I try and keep out of your dramas. I don’t like drama in my life, which is why I’m content to hook up with you whenever and be free of you the rest of the time.
Don’t make that face. You love it.
But her, she’s different. Always has been. You should have known that. Maybe I should have, too.
I was feeling a little less on edge, so I invited her to sit out on the porch and drink with me, that good hooch from last May, but she ran out the door ahead of me, skirts bunching up around her legs. Eye of God, I had no idea where she was going. I sure as the Womb didn’t think she was going out into the wasteland after you.
That’d be mad, wouldn’t it?
But I’d underestimated her.
We both did, you and I.
Get your chin up off the floor, dear.
It was dark as ass out there. I followed her, cause I like to feed that good monster inside me sometimes, you know. It wasn’t all ego, then or now. Helped me sleep at time, to run after damned fool woman in the dark. Even one you were courting.
She headed to the river. She’s younger than me, taller. I’m fit, but you know I’m not moving so fast as I used to, what with that rod in my hip and this damn flinty eye of mine. Can’t see shit, can’t walk around for shit.
Should have been me that got shot.
Oh, you go on and just say it out loud, what you think about what should have happened. I already see it on your face. Have the guts in that big belly of yours to speak it.
Sure as shit, I’m harder to hit.
It’s okay to laugh at that.
So I follow her down to the river. The stars are out and what’s left of the moon now, less and less as pieces of it burn across the sky every night. All those heavenly bodies are glinting the hidden sun’s light back at me. Remember when I didn’t believe the sun still shone at night? Remember when my head was full of old proverbs and not a lick of fact? Yeah, well, I think it’s turned around now as I get older. Fewer facts. More proverbs.
It’s the stories that stick.
We pushed down through the scrub. It was one of those nights, you know, where you walk outside and the air is so heavy you think you’ll drown. Already, I could see it was gonna heat up something fierce when sunrise broke. It was that damp heat that makes the big brown moths drop outta the air and collect on the porch like dead women.
Suldana was real insistent about walking down to that river, and I was keen on going after. Trying to be some good woman I’m not, you remember. Like I said, she was moving faster, and my shoes were for shit, and the mud was squelching up between the holes in the soles. I got stuck, took too much time …
I saw your bike tracks there in the dirt. Suldana’s little bare footprints walked all over them. She didn’t even look at the ground, but somehow she followed them. Suldana was real quiet for a long time. She came to the path leading down to the river and disappeared down the gully there, into the brush.
By the time I slid down there after her, she had already seen it all.
You, Lucy, Brin, and the whole thing.
I kinda felt sorry for her, you know, this little skinny woman with her big wide eyes, standing there in the sucking mud of the river bank, watching you fuck a couple of monsters.
Your bike was leaning against that big twisted hybrid oak along the shore, and I imagined how it went, how she must have seen that first, and been happy, thinking she’d found you so easily, assuming you were alone.
You and I know better.
I figured you didn’t see her, but I could be wrong. I know Lucy saw her, though, because she pulled you down into the river, tangling you up into those tentacles of hers and dragging you and fuzzy-mouthed Brin deep into the squalling water with her.
Suldana made a choking sound, not quite a scream—those of us who’ve lived long out here know that noise can mean death, and she did all right not being too vocal about it.
But when I reached her, she was unsteady on her feet. I put my hand out to catch her. She grappled for the scrappy little knife at her belt, and I just knocked her hand away. You know what happens when somebody pulls on me. They meet Martha.
Yeah, I’ve got Martha right here next to me, all three feet of her, barbed wire wrapped around this solid metal core. You know what happens when I swing it, right? You’ve been on the other end of Martha, a long time ago. Before all this. When Martha was my granddad’s and all we had of the past was stories and piles of junk to salvage.
That turned her, getting an eye on Martha, and so she wheedled with me.
She burst into tears and said you were her whole goddamn life. She wanted to live some kind of fairytale with you.
“I’ve changed too much for her,” Suldana says, “I can’t go back now.”
I just started getting this sour look on my face. I keep telling you to stay away from women like Suldana. They get smitten real fast and don’t like being all alone. That’s not good, you know, considering how you are and all. She went on about how it would all change once you two got married, and I rolled my eyes because who does that shit anymore? She was farther gone than I thought. Maybe I should have just spilled all this to her sooner. Maybe that woulda made it easier. Guess I’ll never know.
And then she sat there and asked me straight out how long you’ve been consorting with monsters instead of fighting them the way you told everyone you were.
So I told her.
Oh, shut that mouth, none of this was my fault. All I did was tell her the truth straight out. It was all pretty plain anyway. Hey, you’re my friend, I got obligations to you and all, but Suldana’s a woman, and I got obligations to other women, too. She’s got a right to know what’s happening out here at the edge of everything. She’s old enough, now.
I said yea, you come by some nights. We talk and such, and sometimes more. I told her how it all started, with you wanting to get your hands on my Martha to slay all those beasts out there, and how the first time you held Martha up to one of those monsters your eyes met and you were smitten. I didn’t expect Suldana to understand that part; she was raised in the village, there in the ruins of those glory days, and they filled her head with social niceties from some other time, shit that doesn’t fit this world the way you and I do.
You’re my buddy, I tell her, and together we romance monsters when we’re not romancing each other, but she’s not listening by this time. She’s sobbing again, all lost in herself.
She kept saying that she wanted to be your buddy, too, not just another woman. She had changed herself, she said, all for you, and now it was too late to go back.
I got her to go back to the house, tried to calm her down with some liquor again, but she was having none of it. She yelled, “This is what you made me do!” and then she ran out of the house.
I figured it was time to give her some distance, you know. I stepped up on the porch, picked my way around those big brown moths, and just watched her run off and get on her creaky old bike. She pedaled back down the lane, skirts bunched around her waist, and I figured that was that. Not my problem anymore. I was done feeding the good, empathetic beast inside of me. I just wanted some peace and quiet.
That’s why you shouldn’t blame me for what came next. How was I supposed to know?
When I rolled out of bed the next morning, there was a fine red dust over everything, the dust that comes after a dry storm rolls in. The air had dried out too; my tongue was fuzzy in my throat and my lips were all gummy with grime and dried spit.
The sun was already heating things up something fierce. In the light streaming in through that one broken window over my bed, I saw tracks in the dust on the floor. Little bare feet.
I bolted out of bed and followed the tracks, already knowing exactly where they were going.
The tracks led back into the sitting room, there at the old settee where I had left Martha.
Martha was gone.
I got that pain in my chest I get sometimes, I guess you could call it grief, and I kicked on some shoes and ran out the front.
I knew Suldana well enough to know where she was taking Martha.
She was heading right back to the river.
Right back to you and your monsters.
I slid back down the river bank, yelling for her cause I figured that would break her concentration, maybe give Lucy or Brin some warning, try to make sure nobody got hurt or killed. I already knew who was most likely to end up dead, and that didn’t sit well with me. You always said that if Brin or Lucy screwed up, that was the end of it for them. You can’t very well tell people you’re killing monsters if monsters show up and hurt people after they’re supposed to be dead.
I get down there and skid to a halt at the edge of the river. There’s Suldana in the center of the water, standing up on a big rocky perch. She’s clinging to Martha; Martha’s more than half her size, and it was a wonder she could manage to keep her balance and keep hold of Martha at the same time.
And there’s Lucy already in front of her, black tentacles bubbling in the water around Suldana’s perch, her great globular head just beneath the surface of the water, blinking those sixteen eyes furiously at Suldana.
“I’ll show you all how this is done!” Suldana said. “We are here to fight monsters!” And she hefted Martha with a lot more strength than I’d given her credit for.
“You’re a damn fool!” I said, “Lucy could squeeze you to death right now, and she ain’t. Listen here! We can’t solve our problems the way the old world did, hey? That shit is what got us here.”
“They’re monsters!” she yelled.
“We’re all fucking monsters,” I said. “You look at the two monsters inside you warring right now, and you tell me which one you’re feeding. You want to hurt someone out of compassion? Joy? You want to kill a living thing for … peace? Naw. That’s not good you’re feeding, Suldana.”
“What would you know?” Suldana said and she swung at Martha, and hell’s bells, she lost her balance and tipped right over into the water.
You know I can’t swim. I don’t like getting into water where I can’t see the bottom. That ain’t good or bad, then, that I didn’t wade in after her, it’s just common sense.
But Lucy did. She surfaced and wrapped up Suldana in a couple tentacles and Martha with the other, and she deposited them both there in the shallows.
Lucy gave me that look she gets, with those sixteen eyes, like she’s judging all us people here on the shore dedicated to never changing, dedicated to being the same people we were with the old world ended, and then she rolled them, and I know she learned that from you. Lucy submerged again and went deep, disappeared.
Suldana sat next to me on the shore, looking like a wet dog.
I picked up Martha and secured her to my back—only way you can carry Martha properly—and said, “You done yet?”
She got up and slogged over to the motorbike you’d left there at the tree. I guess you and Brin must have still been off somewhere. She hefted it back up the trough of the river and onto the path. I followed her, not asking.
“I’m going to report her,” Suldana said. “I’m going to put out the Call.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” I said. “It ain’t right.”
“Then you should stop me.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
Suldana got onto the bike and revved it up and rolled out of there. Wasting a lot of good juice, I thought, and made a mental note on how much wind power had gone into charging those goddamn electric batteries.
She took off.
That was the last I saw of her … the rest I heard about, later.
Suldana made a run back into town, figuring she was going to make the Call right there in the town square. But it’s a long ride back to town, and along the way is old Hiller’s place, you remember it? And Hiller’s dogs. And those dogs, you know, they hate it when you drive that motorbike past.
So she comes up past old Hiller’s—and again, I heard this after—and the dogs start up something fierce. She panics, tries to drive around them, and I guess she turned into Hiller’s drive, maybe thinking she could get Hiller to call them off.
But Hiller, she’s touchy, and hungover, that time of the morning. Hiller’s not thinking straight either.
Suldana wipes out in the drive, going too fast. The pack of dogs is screaming.
And so Hiller does what all the people do, and Hiller brings out that big shotgun from over her mantle and shoots at what has her dogs riled up.
Maybe Hiller thought Suldana was a deer or some warthog wasteland beast. It don’t matter, though. You know the rules: you cross someone’s land, and what they do to you is their business.
Old world rules, here in the new world.
Damn fool rules.
I heard Hiller took her down to Aman’s place to try and get Suldana patched up, but it was too late. Aman was patching her up, and she says Suldana said she really wished she was more like me. Me, of all people, cause she said, “Hey, old Monster Maj is better than all of us.”
Funny, hey? Guess she still thinks of me that way, after all this time. Guess they all still do. That’s what happens, when you have a face like mine, scarred by that old fire at the silo when what was left of the world crawled back out into this new age. Guess I’ve been a monster my whole life to them. Guess maybe it’s why I get what you’re doing, even if no one else does.
That’s when Aman tells me that when she took off Suldana’s clothes to prep the body to be burned, well … Suldana’s skin was all scaly. She was growing these weird, fleshy welts. She was … changing, just like she told me she was.
I asked Aman how that was possible, was she a mutant? Too much time in the wasteland? And Aman says she thinks Suldana did it to herself. Did it for you. She works in Aman’s lab, and Aman found some old viruses missing, some of those ones from the old world.
Suldana knew all along about you. About the monsters.
I been thinking a lot about that ever since. Why she tried to kill Lucy if she had already made the choice to be like her and all the others. Maybe it was just jealousy, right? Or something stranger. I don’t know what she was feeling that night when I told her about you, but it was something I don’t understand. Maybe she went after Lucy because when she saw you with them, Suldana understood what she was going to become. Understood she’d be like all of us, eventually, and that there was no going back.
They always want to go back.
But you can’t. You can’t.
So where were you when Suldana got shot? I was here, saving your monsters.
Where were you? What were you doing?
Where the fuck were you?
I need to know, buddy, because Brin’s body washed up on the riverbed this morning, and Lucy hasn’t surfaced, and I’m starting to wonder, buddy … I’m starting to wonder if you’ve started feeding another monster inside that big belly of yours.
I need that answer.
Martha here is really keen to know what world you’re a part of. The one we’re building, or the one we killed.
I know which of those worlds has a future.
That’s the future I’m feeding.