Benjamin Percy: The Dead Lands

One hundred and fifty years ago — when the world began to fall apart, when the flu mutated and millions began to die, their lungs hitching until they coughed up blood — several businessmen and politicians and National Guard units fortified downtown St. Louis with the improvised panic of people scrambling for cover against a sudden storm. There was no time for committees, for debate, for a show of hands. There was not even enough time to collect toothbrushes, rifles, photo albums, to call upon family members to join them. They had to make the immediate decision to live or die. The flu was airborne. It was burning brains with fevers, choking lungs with blood. And it was coming. So the wall rose around them, like a swift buckling of the earth.

A constitution followed a year later. They did not call themselves a country. They were a sovereign city, a temporary haven awaiting reincorporation. The United States would rise again, and in the meantime, they would uphold as many democratic principles as they could while maintaining strict control. They elected their mayor and city council to two-year terms. All firearms were abolished, all currency collected and redistributed.

Lewis’s father was elected and reelected for more than thirty years. When he died, Thomas, a member of the city council, announced he would run for mayor. He had such an easy way with people, always smiling, looking deeply into eyes, taking a hand with both of his and not letting go. His campaign slogan, Evolve , asked that people reconsider the Sanctuary. Previous administrations insisted that the world was not lost, that the Sanctuary was a temporary haven, that one day the country would reunite. Thomas argued for an end to the lies. He wanted everyone to recognize that they were on their own, that they needed to change, to progress. The Sanctuary was more than an old city — it was the new world. He designed a flag — what would become the flag of the Sanctuary — red, white, and blue, but carrying a single star.

Several approached Lewis and begged him to put in a bid. They said people liked familiarity. His name, Meriwether, carried currency, had history. People would vote for him because he would make them feel safe.

Lewis said they were fools. People detested him. He was not familiar, despite his last name, but the very definition of unfamiliar. Different. Weird. Unsettling. If his father walked through a crowd, they swarmed him; if Lewis walked through a crowd, they scrambled to escape him. And he had no interest in politics. He only wanted to retain his stewardship of the museum, the place he served as an aide throughout his childhood, the only education available in the Sanctuary after children left school to work at the age of ten.

A few put in bids against Thomas, but he dominated the ticket. People believed in his platform. They wanted to evolve. They were ready for change — and they got it.

A heavy oaken door swings open and tendrils of steam escape it. Water splashes. Someone titters. Lewis enters the bath, the marble floor rising into a rectangular tub bigger than a bed. Three square windows are cut into the wall and they flood the room with light that swirls with steam through which Lewis observes Thomas.

He sits in the middle of the tub, joined by a long, lean boy who couldn’t be more than twenty. Lewis seems to recall his name as Vincent. It is hard to remember them all. Some are male, some female, all young. Thomas once told Lewis he would screw anything, as long as it had skin and yielded to him. His wife, he claimed, was made of bone. So he found other ways to entertain himself. Vincent must be special — he has lasted longer than the others. The boy licks his sponge across Thomas’s back and shoulders, his neck and belly. His face is a foaming mess of soap, costuming him with the beard he cannot grow. His eyes appear glazed — perhaps from sex, the heat, the glass of brown liquor resting at the edge of the tub.

Lewis clears his throat and says, in the pause that follows, “You demanded my audience.”

Thomas blearily observes him, then startles to attention. “Lewis.” Waves of water slosh when he lifts his arms in greeting. “I’m so glad to see you, so glad you could come.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Thomas dunks his head and works the soap from his hair and then rises sputtering. His face appears to sulk even when he smiles. A trail of gold hair drops from his belly button to his groin — otherwise his skin is as bare as an infant’s, maybe shaved. “Yes, well, you know how you are.”

“Reluctant.”

“Always busy. Always working. You never have time for old friends.” He turns to Vincent, who smiles at him curiously, his sponge oozing soap down his thigh. “Go away. Though I may call for you later.”

Vincent climbs from the bath and wraps himself in a robe and splashes through the puddles on the floor on his way out. Thomas watches him go before eeling his way to the head of the tub, hooking one arm over the edge. On the ledge rests a tray piled high with baked grubs. He snatches one, pops it in his mouth.

“There is no life without water, Thomas. That is the immutable law of the universe.”

Thomas suckles the grub. “What are you getting at?”

“Do you know how upset people would be if they knew you were taking baths?”

Thomas makes a dismissive gesture, then lets the beak of the grub slip from his lips. It drops to the tray with a tick . “We recycle the water. Everything here will be bucketed into the gardens.”

“How generous of you.”

His eyes narrow and his voice drops to a whisper. “So have you done it?”

“No.”

“Have you even tried?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lie. If you can build an owl, you can build a gun. You can build me whatever I ask for.”

Thomas is right. Lewis is lying. He has not tried and he will not try. Three months ago, when someone began painting protest slogans across buildings, when a brick crashed through one of the Dome’s windows, when an effigy of the mayor was found floating in the sewage canal, Thomas approached Lewis about the possibility of black powder, of guns. Their forebears had thought it unwise, in such a contained community, to make it any easier to kill what few people remained in the world. And in the second amendment to their constitution, all rifles and pistols were destroyed. When Lewis reminded him of this, Thomas raised an open hand. “I know. I know what they said. But times are different. They had water . I need to be able to better control my people.”

Thomas has never appeared physically threatening, but his mind has a shrewd capability for violence. Even when they were children, he knew how to hurt, placing a hand to the chests of those who wanted to be with him most, saying, “You may not play with me.” Now Lewis sees a similar sharpness in his expression, a barely controlled fury that twitches the corners of his mouth. “You wouldn’t want to see your precious museum closed, would you? Then all the knowledge would be left to those who know what to do with it. Men like us. The less people know, the better off they are.”

“The better off you are, you mean.” Knowledge is a threat. Lewis is a threat. It isn’t the first time Thomas has mentioned closing the museum. There was even a motion to do so last month during a city council meeting — so that the space might be occupied, its many treasures repurposed — but it was struck down.

Thomas says, “You are deeply unpleasant, you know that?”

“Closing the museum is an empty threat. People would riot. It’s one of their only pleasures.”

“It’s a shadowy junk pile, a haunted house. You’re the only one who takes pleasure in it.” Thomas is smiling, but he clenches his jaw as if to keep himself from swallowing something bitter. “What about your mother?”