MaddAddam, Page 3

  "No!" said Toby sharply, as if to dogs. "Stay here! With Snowman-the-Jimmy!" How to make it clear to them that, even with the aid of floral display and serenading and penis-wagging, they couldn't just pile on to any young non-Craker woman who smelled available to them? But they'd already disappeared around the corner of the main house.

  The two Craker carriers lowered Jimmy down. He slumped limply against their knees. "Where will Snowman-the-Jimmy be?" they asked. "Where can we purr for him?"

  "He'll need to be in a room by himself," said Toby. "We'll find a bed for him, and then I'll get the medicine."

  "We will come with you," they said. "We will purr." They picked Jimmy up again, making a chair for him with their arms. The others crowded around.

  "Not all of you," said Toby. "He needs to be quiet."

  "He can have Croze's room," said Ren. "Can't he, Croze?"

  "Who's that?" said Crozier, peering at Jimmy, whose head was lolling to one side, who was drooling into his beard, who was scratching fitfully at himself with one filthy hand through the pink fabric of the top-to-toe, and who noticeably stank. "Where'd you drag him in from? Why's he wearing pink? He looks like a fucking ballerina!"

  "It's Jimmy," said Ren. "Remember, I told you? My old boyfriend?"

  "The one who messed you over? From high school? That child molester?"

  "Don't be like that," said Ren. "I wasn't really a child. He's got a fever."

  "Don't go, don't go," said Jimmy. "Come back to the tree!"

  "You're sticking up for him? After how he dumped you?"

  "Yeah, right, but he's kind of a hero now," said Ren. "He helped save Amanda. He almost, you know, died."

  "Amanda," said Croze. "I don't see her. Where is she?"

  "She's over here," said Ren, pointing to the group of Craker women surrounding Amanda, stroking her and purring gently. They moved aside to let Ren into their circle.

  "That's Amanda?" said Crozier. "No shit! She looks like ..."

  "Don't say it," said Ren, putting her arms around Amanda. "She'll look a lot better tomorrow. Or next week, anyway." Amanda started to cry.

  "She's gone," said Jimmy. "She flew away. Pigoons."

  "Cripes," said Crozier. "This is fucking weird."

  "Croze, everything is fucking weird," said Ren.

  "Okay, right, I'm sorry. I'm almost off sentry. Let's ..."

  "I think I should help Toby," said Ren. "At this moment."

  "Looks like I sleep on the ground, since that fuckwit's tagged my bed," Croze said to Manatee.

  "Please grow up," said Ren.

  That's all we need, thought Toby. Love's young squabbles.

  They carried Jimmy into Croze's cubicle and laid him down on the bed. Toby asked two Craker women and Ren to aim the flashlights she'd got from the kitchen. Then she found her medical materials, on the shelf where she'd left them before setting off to find Amanda.

  She did all she could for Jimmy: a sponge bath to get off the worst of the dirt; honey applied to the superficial cuts; mushroom elixir for the infection. Then Poppy and Willow, for the pain and for a restful sleep. And the small grey maggots, applied to the foot wound to nibble off the infected flesh. Judging from the smell, the maggots were just in time.

  "What are those?" said one of the two Craker women, the tall one. "Why do you put those little animals on Snowman-the-Jimmy? Are they eating him?"

  "It tickles," said Jimmy. His eyes were half open; the Poppy was taking effect.

  "Oryx sent them," said Toby. That seemed to be a good answer, because they smiled. "They are called maggots," she continued. "They are eating the pain."

  "What does the pain taste like, Oh Toby?"

  "Should we eat the pain too?"

  "If we ate the pain, that would help Snowman-the-Jimmy."

  "The pain smells very bad. Does it taste good?"

  She should avoid metaphors. "The pain tastes good only to the maggots," she said. "No. You should not eat the pain."

  "Will he be okay?" Ren said. "Has he got gangrene?"

  "I hope not," said Toby. The two Craker women placed their hands on him and began to purr.

  "Falling," said Jimmy. "Butterfly. She's gone."

  Ren bent over him, brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Go to sleep, Jimmy," she said. "We love you."

  Cobb House

  Morning

  Toby dreams that she's in her little single bed, at home. Her stuffed lion is on the pillow beside her, and her big shaggy bear that plays a tune. Her antique piggy bank is on her desk, and the tablet she uses for her homework, and her felt-tip crayons, and her daisy-skinned cellphone. From the kitchen comes the sound of her mother's voice, calling; her father, answering; the smell of eggs frying.

  Inside this dream, she's dreaming of animals. One is a pig, though six-legged; another is cat-like, with compound eyes like a fly. There's a bear as well, but it has hooves. These animals are neither hostile nor friendly. Now the city outside is on fire, she can smell it; fear fills the air. Gone, gone, says a voice, like a bell tolling. One by one the animals come towards her and begin to lick her with their warm, raspy tongues.

  At the edge of sleep, she gropes towards the retreating dream: the burning city, the messengers sent to warn her. That the world has been changed utterly; that the familiar is long dead; that everything she used to love has been swept away.

  As Adam One used to say, The fate of Sodom is fast approaching. Suppress regret. Avoid the pillar of salt. Don't look back.

  She wakes to find a Mo'Hair licking her leg: a red-head, its long human hair braided into pigtails, each with a string bow: some sentimentalist among the MaddAddamites has been at work. It must have got out of the pen where they're keeping them.

  "Move it," she says to it, shoving it gently with her foot. It gives her a look of addled reproach - they're none too bright, the Mo'Hairs - and clatters out through the doorway. We could use some doors around here, she thinks.

  The morning light is filtering in through the piece of cloth that's been hung over the window in a futile attempt to keep out the mosquitoes. If only they could find some screens! But they'd have to install window frames because the cobb house wasn't built to be lived in: it had been a parkette staging pavilion for fairs and parties, and they're squatting in it now because it's safe. It's away from the urban rubble - the deserted streets and random electrical fires and the buried rivers that are welling up now that the pumps have failed. No collapsing building can fall down on it, and as it's only one storey high, it's unlikely to fall down on itself.

  She untwists herself from the damp morning sheet and stretches her arms, feeling for sprains and tightness. She's almost too tired to get up. Too tired, too discouraged, too angry with herself over last night's fireside fiasco. What will she tell Zeb when he gets back? Supposing he does get back. Zeb is resourceful, but he's not invulnerable.

  She can only hope that he's been more successful with his quest than she has been with hers. There's a chance that some of the God's Gardeners have survived because if anyone would know how to wait out the pandemic that killed almost everyone else, it would be them. During all the years that she spent with them, first as their guest, then as an apprentice, and finally as a high-ranking Eve, they'd planned for catastrophe. They'd built hidden places of refuge and stocked them with supplies: honey, dried soybeans and mushrooms, rose hips, elderberry compote, preserves of various kinds. Seeds to plant in the new, cleansed world they believed would come. Perhaps they'd waited the plague out in one of these refuges - one of their sheltering Ararats, where they hoped they'd be safe while riding out what they termed the Waterless Flood. God had promised after the Noah incident that he'd never use the water method again, but considering the wickedness of the world he was bound to do something: that was their reasoning. But where will Zeb look for them, out there among the ruins of the city? Where to even begin?

  Visualize your strongest desire, the Gardeners used to say, and it will manifest; which doesn't always work, or
not as intended. Her strongest desire is to have Zeb come back safe, but if he does, she'll have to face up once again to the fact that she's neutral territory as far as he's concerned. Nothing emotional, no sexiness there, no frills. A trusted comrade and foot soldier: reliable Toby, so competent. That's about it.

  And she'll have to admit her failure to him. I was a cretin. It was Saint Julian's, I couldn't kill them. They got away. They took a spraygun. She won't snivel, she won't cry, she won't give excuses. He won't say much, but he'll be disappointed in her.

  Don't be too harsh on yourself, Adam One used to say in his patient blue-eyed way. We all make mistakes. True, she replies to him now, but some mistakes are more lethal than others. If Zeb gets killed by one of the Painballers, it will be her fault. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She feels like whacking her head against the cobb-house wall.

  She can only hope the Painballers were spooked enough to run very far away. But will they stay away? They'll need food. They might scavenge some quasi-food in the deserted houses and shops from whatever hasn't mouldered or been eaten by rats or looted months ago. They may even blast a few animals - a rakunk, a green rabbit, a liobam - but after they use up their cellpack ammunition, they'll need more.

  And they know the MaddAddam cobb house will have some. Sooner or later they'll be tempted to attack at the weakest link: they'll grab a Craker child and offer to swap, as they tried to swap Amanda earlier. It will be sprayguns and cellpacks they'll want, with a young woman or two thrown in - Ren or Lotis Blue or White Sedge or Swift Fox - not Amanda, they've already expended her. Or a Craker female in heat, why not? It would be a novelty for them, a woman with a bright blue abdomen; not the best conversationalists, those Crakers, but the Painballers won't care about that. They'll demand Toby's rifle too.

  The Crakers would think it was just a matter of sharing. They want the stick thing? It would make them happy? Why are you not giving it to them, Oh Toby? How to explain that you can't hand over a murder weapon to a murderer? The Crakers wouldn't understand murder because they're so trusting. They'd never imagine that anyone would rape them - What is rape? Or slit their throats - Oh Toby, why? Or slash them open and eat their kidneys - But Oryx would not allow it!

  Suppose the Crakers hadn't untied those knots. What had she intended to do? Would she have marched the Painballers back to the cobb house, then kept them penned up until Zeb got back and took over and did the necessary thing?

  He'd have held some sort of perfunctory discussion. Then there would have been a double hanging. Or maybe he'd have skipped the preliminaries and just hit them with a shovel, saying, Why dirty a rope? The end result would be the same as if she'd snuffed the two of them immediately, right then and there at the campfire.

  Enough of such dour stocktaking. It's morning. She has to cut out these daydreams in which Zeb performs decisive leadership acts that she ought to have performed herself. She needs to get up, go outside, join the others. Repair what can't be repaired, mend what can't be mended, shoot what needs to be shot. Hold the fort.

  Breakfast

  She swings her legs off the bed, sets her feet on the floor, stands. Her muscles hurt, her skin feels like sandpaper, but it's not so bad once you're up.

  She chooses a bedsheet - lavender with blue dots - from the selection on her shelf. There's a pile of sheets in every cubicle, like towels in a hotel of old. Her pink top-to-toe from the AnooYoo Spa is in rags and may be infected with whatever it is Jimmy might have: she'll need to burn it. When she gets the time she'll sew a few of the sheets together, with arms and a hood, but meanwhile she drapes the lavender sheet around herself toga-style.

  There's no shortage of bedsheets. The MaddAddamites have gleaned enough of them from the city's deserted buildings to last a while, and they also have a stash of pants and T-shirts for heavy work. But the sheets are cooler and one-size-fits-all, so they're the MaddAddamite attire of choice. When the bedsheets are used up they'll have to think of something else, but that won't happen for years. Decades. If they live that long.

  A mirror is what she needs. Hard to know how much of a wreck she is without one. Maybe she'll be able to get mirrors onto the next gleaning list. Those, and toothbrushes.

  She slings her knapsack with her health-care items over one shoulder: the maggots, the honey, the mushroom elixir, the Willow and Poppy. She'll tend to Jimmy first thing, supposing he's still alive. But only after she's had some breakfast: she can't face the day, much less Jimmy's festering foot, on an empty stomach. Then she picks up her rifle and steps out into the full glare of morning.

  Although it's still early, the sun's already burning white. She hoists one end of her bedsheet over her head for protection, checks out the cobb-house yard. The red-headed Mo'Hair, still at large, is eyeing the vegetables through the kitchen-garden fence while chewing on some kudzu. Its friends in the Mo'Hair pen are bleating at it: silver Mo'Hairs, blue ones, green ones and pink ones, brunettes and blondes: the full range of colours. Hair Today, Mo'Hair Tomorrow went the ad when the creatures had first been launched.

  Toby's present-day hair is a Mo'Hair transplant: she didn't use to be so raven-hued. Maybe that was why the Mo'Hair had come into her cubicle to lick her on the leg. It wasn't the salt, it was the faint smell of lanolin. It thought she was a relative.

  Just so long as I don't get jumped by one of the rams, she thinks. She'll have to watch herself for signs of sheepishness. Rebecca must be up by now, dealing with breakfast issues over at the cooking shack; maybe she's got some floral-scented shampoo tucked away in her supply room.

  Over near the garden, Ren and Lotis Blue are sitting in the shade, deep in conversation. Amanda is sitting with them, staring off into the distance. Fallow state, the Gardeners would say. They used that diagnosis for a wide range of conditions, from depression to post-traumatic stress to being permanently stoned. The theory was that while in a Fallow state you were gathering and conserving strength, nourishing yourself through meditation, sending invisible rootlets out into the universe. Toby really hopes this is true of Amanda. She'd been such a lively child in Toby's class at the Gardener school, back there on the Edencliff Rooftop Garden. When was that? Ten, fifteen years ago? Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic.

  Ivory Bill and Manatee and Tamaraw are fortifying the boundary fence. In daylight it looks flimsy, permeable. Onto the skeleton of the old ornamental ironwork paling they've attached an assortment of materials: lengths of wire fencing interwoven with duct tape, a mixture of poles, a row of pointed sticks with their ends set in the ground and the points facing out. Manatee is adding more sticks; Ivory Bill and Tamaraw are on the other side of the fence, with shovels. They appear to be filling in a hole.

  "Morning," says Toby.

  "Take a look at this," says Manatee. "Something was trying to tunnel under. Last night. Sentries didn't see them, they were chasing those pigs off at the front."

  "Any tracks?" said Toby.

  "We think it was maybe more of those pigs," Tamaraw says. "Smart - distracting attention, then trying a sneaky dig. Anyway, they didn't get in."

  Beyond the boundary fence there's a semicircle of male Crakers, evenly spaced, facing outward, peeing in unison. A man in a striped bedsheet who looks like Crozier - in fact, it is Crozier - is standing with them, joining in the group pee-in.

  What next? Is Crozier going native? Will he shed his clothes, take up a cappella singing, grow a huge penis that turns blue in season? If the first two items were the price of entry for the third, he'd do it in a shot. Soon every single human male among the MaddAddamites will be yearning for one of those. And once that starts, how long before the rivalries and wars break out, with clubs and sticks and stones, and then ...

  Get a grip, Toby, she tells herself. Don't borrow trouble. You really, really, really need some coffee. Any kind of coffee. Dandelion root. Happicuppa. Black mud, if that's all there is.

  And if there were any booze, she'd drink that too.

  A long dining room table has been set
up beside the cooking shack. There's a shade sail deployed above it, gleaned from some deserted backyard. All the patios must be derelict now, the swimming pools cracked and empty or clogged with weeds, the broken kitchen windows invaded by the probing green snoutlets of vines. Inside the houses, nests in the corners made from chewed-up carpets, wriggling and squeaking with hairless baby rats. Termites mining through the rafters. Bats hawking for moths in the stairwells.

  "Once the tree roots get in," Adam One had been fond of saying to the Gardener inner circle, "once they really take hold, no human-built structure stands a chance. They'll tear a paved road apart in a year. They'll block the drainage culverts, and once the pumping systems fail, the foundations will be eaten away, and no force on earth will be able to stop that kind of water, and then, when the generating stations catch fire or short out, not to mention the nuclear ..."

  "Then you can kiss your morning toast goodbye," Zeb had once added to this litany. He'd just blown in from one of his mysterious courier missions; he looked battered, and his black pleather jacket was ripped. Urban Bloodshed Limitation was one of the subjects he taught the Gardener kids, but he didn't always practise it. "Yeah, yeah, we know, we're doomed. Any hope of some elderberry pie around here? I'm starving." Zeb did not always show a proper reverence towards Adam One.

  Speculations about what the world would be like after human control of it ended had been - long ago, briefly - a queasy form of popular entertainment. There had even been online TV shows about it: computer-generated landscape pictures with deer grazing in Times Square, serves-us-right finger-wagging, earnest experts lecturing about all the wrong turns taken by the human race.

  There was only so much of that people could stand, judging from the ratings, which spiked and then plummeted as viewers voted with their thumbs, switching from imminent wipeout to real-time contests about hotdog-swallowing if they liked nostalgia, or to sassy-best-girlfriends comedies if they liked stuffed animals, or to Mixed Martial Arts Felony Fights if they liked bitten-off ears, or to Nitee-Nite live-streamed suicides or HottTotts kiddy porn or Hedsoff real-time executions if they were truly jaded. All of it so much more palatable than the truth.