THE LAST MAN: Part Five

The world returned grudgingly as unfocused shapes and sounds, and in hues of umber and jaundiced grays. Even that dull shadow-less light strained my eyesight. My head was a void at first. It took a moment before molten pain crashed through to fill that void.

A new and strange scent filled the air. It was entirely unknown to me. There was a bitter spicy warmth which awakened all of my senses in new and almost sexual ways, despite that pressing pain. I recall laying there for a while more focused on those paletted smells than on worrying over the nature and severity of my injury.

I was on a billowy soft mattress, most unlike the then bare foam mattress and cervical brace Associates slept on. This was deep, molding to my form until I almost felt, happily, that it would engulf me completely. There was a character to it in the way it felt and smelled. There was, a humanity, an intimacy the likes of which I could not recall knowing before.

The concrete ceiling above was slanted steeply and low. The concrete itself was unfinished, with exposed rebar. There were tannish-brown water stains, emanating from deep cracks. Chunks of concrete had broken loose, some of them quite large, which gave me a bit of concern. It was too much to take all at once. I closed my eyes and groaned.

It was noticeably colder than the city, or even in the archives down deep below those busy city streets. There were sounds. They were far away sounds, deeply resonant sounds and heavy thundering sounds. There were of course, the muffled distant sounds of the city. I could hear the waves clearer now, washing powerfully, sounding hollow and low.

There were closer sounds too. I could hear urgent and heated whispers, though it was impossible to make any sense of what was being said. It wasn’t children, that much I was sure. If I had been in slightly better condition I would have inferred that whatever it was those heated exchanges were about me.

After a time I managed to sit up, though it was still an open question if I would be able to remain there for long. My head was supported in my hands. The pressure helped alleviate the pain somewhat. More than that, it held the dizziness at bay, which would have very quickly made me vomit.

“Papa, come quick now!” a child said.

I strained to look up without moving my head. The girl from the archives stood in a crooked doorway or more accurately an uneven break in a concrete support wall. She was dressed in rags. Her eyes were fixed on me with a mixture curiosity and suspicion, quite unlike anything capable of Associate children. There was a second wall behind her. A soft orange light waxed and waned across it from an unseen flame.

I made no effort to move or look up or defend myself. The blow, at least for a time, had rendered me defenseless. I wasn’t helpless as much as I was entirely indifferent to my fate at that moment. Death, I decided, would be no worse that the thundering waves of pain hammering the inside of my skull and extending down throughout my body.

I was still trying to focus, my eyes still fixed the floor. A man came in the room. All I could tell at first was that he wore the high black jackboots of a Section Twenty-one trooper. I had no fear. The boots were in atrocious condition. They were worn and terribly scuffed. Cracks had formed at the ankles and across the toes so severely that the boots seemed ready to fall apart. His simple gray Associate trousers were filthy, and tucked into the tops of the boots in typical Section Twenty-one style.

“Not a shred of fight in me,” I moaned softly. It was simpler not to look up. For the moment it hardly seemed to matter.

A brutally long silence followed. It was enough to awaken some animal imperative for survival and resistance. The imperative built in my chest, but without any response from the rest of my body.

To my great surprise the man laid a cool damp rag across the back of my head. I winced, but more for the unexpected nature of the gesture. The affect in my heart and my head was instantaneous. I gave a long low groan as, for the moment, the tension eminating from my wound down into my torso was relieved.

“Obliged,” I said, reaching back to bring the rag tighter to the lump on my head.

I managed to look up, into the face of the oldest man I had ever seen. He was far older than any Associate I knew of, for he would have long ago gone to reclamation. His face was bronze in color. The deeply lined flesh as hard and weathered as the ancient leather-bound manuscripts I had come across in the archives. His face was long and square, reminding me of black and white photographs of John Brown, the abolitionist I had read about.

“Took a mighty big clomp to the lid,” he pursed his lips sympathetically. He wore bits and pieces of old Associate clothing, sewn crudely together and patched in parts. Like the child behind him, a fur wrap was thrown across his shoulders.

“Anyone you know?” I quipped, discovering that it was excruciating even to smile. “I’d like to have a word.” I felt dizzy and nauseous suddenly. “Perhaps it could wait a while.”

“My daughter is this one,” he motioned to the girl cowering behind him. “Heard that screeching and guessed she was being murdered. Couldn’t have that be, you see.”

“Just wanted to know who was pelting me with books. I was supposed to be alone down…”

“This is what she told me what happened. I figured, and then we brought you back here for fixing.”

He had such an odd way of talking. Not stupid, but simple. I gave them both a strange and perplexed look. He seemed to take immediate offense.

“Don’t think ‘cause we swill down here in the low city that manners don’t come to us!”

“Low city?”

I tried to stand, but my heads and legs conspired against me. He caught me just as I was about to spill onto the floor. He was incredibly quick and strong. It seemed no effort at all to hold me up.

“Mister, that clomp still be fresh.” He gently pushed me back to the mattress. “Best you sleep some more time then.”

“Why did you bring me here?” I had to know. “Why didn’t you just leave me in the archive?”

“Don’t let them bugs and rats eat you up.” He drew a hide across my chest and shoulders. It had a musky, salty smell. He studied me a moment. “Besides, you’re not like them kind up there in the city. You’re a different one. You dress like them. I don’t mean for your color and all, but I feel a difference in you. No sir, we don’t see many others like you.”

“Others?” Not sure I’d heard him correctly. “There are more like me?”

“Best be inside the sleep now.”

Sleep, such as it was, really was not much of a decision I had to make. That little bit had fully exhausted me. I closed my eyes, disappointed that I was far too spent to bask in the moment. I felt cheated. I could not celebrate that there were indeed others like me! I tried to imagine what I would say to them, if I would embrace them or embarrass myself with uncontrolled emotion. I was thinking all of this when the darkness descended over me once again.