Will McIntosh - Defenders

The door squealed when Kai nudged it open. The room stank of cigarettes. A woman was curled up in one corner of what had once been an office. She was partially covered by a corner of the wall-to-wall carpet, which she’d peeled up from the floor. In the faint light, Kai took in her swollen face, matted hair, her bulging, empty eyes, wide open and unblinking. He swung the door closed with a cry of disgust.

Skin prickling, he scurried down the steps and out of the bay, back into the biting rain.

There were two more bays. Kai didn’t like the thought of being so close to a dead body, but he was shivering uncontrollably from the cold. He couldn’t keep going. What were the odds he’d find another abandoned building?

There was a door in the second bay, but it led to a bathroom, not an office. The third and final bay had no inner doors at all, so Kai returned to the second, gathered up what scraps of paper he could find, along with a small cardboard box, and returned to the bathroom.

The room smelled dank, with an undertone of dried urine. Still shivering, Kai pulled a half-used roll of toilet paper off the dispenser and used it to dab his wet clothes. It wasn’t much help.

The room was too small for Kai to stretch out, so he curled his legs in, used a wadded-up juice carton as a pillow, and piled the trash over his legs as best he could. It felt strange, not to have Kabuki say good night. He missed Kabuki almost as much as he missed Pauly, though not nearly as much as he missed his mom. He knew Kabuki wasn’t real, was nothing but a bunch of chips in his handheld designed to say pleasant things and follow directions, but he’d been a part of Kai’s life for as long as he could remember.

Kai was freezing. He couldn’t stop shaking; his hissing breath echoed off the half-tiled walls.

An image flashed, of the woman in the next bay. She must have frozen to death, maybe last night. And she had a carpet.

There was a draft whistling through the space where Kai had left the door open a crack. It would be warmer if he closed it, but he would lose the sliver of gray light. He didn’t want to be in the pitch dark.

It had all happened so fast. It didn’t seem long ago that he’d watched the first newscast of Luyten dropping from the sky. He remembered he’d been surprised when the schools were closed the next day. Only a week ago he’d been in his warm bed in Richmond. His mother had tucked him in, told him not to worry about Dad, who was with his brigade less than forty miles away between Richmond and the Luyten surge. A day later he was on a bus roaring down Interstate 95 packed with kids and old people.

There was no point in crying, but he couldn’t help it.

The sound of his own crying made him feel worse. What was he going to do? Why wouldn’t anyone tell him what to do, where to go?

Did you smell?

Kai cried out, jolted upright. He hadn’t thought the words, they’d just come, raking through his head in a voice like steel fingernails on glass, the pronunciations all off in a strange and unsettling way.

She’s smoke. Lighter.

Kai clamped his palms over his ears. His soaked pants were suddenly warm; he was vaguely aware he’d wet himself.

Build fire.

It felt like there was something crawling around in his head. Kai sat frozen, trembling, praying it wouldn’t happen again.

Or you die.

Kai howled in terror. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.

Happening to you. Kai. Freezing.

His teeth were chattering; his whole body was shaking from the cold, from fear. The voice went on, about the cold, about Kai dying, about fire. There was enough trash around to burn, but he had nothing to start a fire with.

She’s smoker. Lighter.

A lighter was what he needed.

You dead this morning. Do you Kai?

The voice had asked him something. Kai was afraid that if he didn’t answer, the voice might get angry, might do something to him. Drive him crazy, pull him down into whatever dark, awful place it came from. Something about the voice was so terribly wrong, so profoundly off . It was as if the words were jagged, scraping the inside of his head.

You do?

“No, I don’t want to be dead,” Kai said aloud, the volume of his own voice in the tight space making him flinch.

She smoked. Lighter.

Maybe he was already crazy. This was just what it was like, wasn’t it? Voices in your head?

Lighter. Her pocket.

Kai jolted. Her pocket. Suddenly he understood what the voice was saying. She smoked. The dead woman smoked. He’d smelled stale smoke in there, hadn’t he? The voice was telling him there was a lighter in her pocket.

Yes.

He didn’t want to go back in that room. She was dead; her eyes were bulging—

Or you die. Go.

Kai shoved the door open, peered into the bay, half expecting to see something crouching there, waiting for him, but there was nothing but concrete, shadows, the howling wind.

Bent against the wind, Kai marched into the next bay, his heart in his throat. He climbed the steps, put his hand on the knob, twisted it partway.

Maybe the voice lived in the bathroom. Maybe if he didn’t go back it couldn’t get him, couldn’t talk to him—

Wrong. Go on.

Kai gripped the handle tighter. It was ice cold. He twisted it, pushed the door open a foot.

There she was. He pushed the door open farther, took a step into the room. She was old, maybe sixty, Hispanic or maybe Indian. The tip of her tongue was jutting from between her blue lips.

He didn’t want to do this; he’d rather freeze to death than stick his fingers in her pocket and feel her body. Would it be squishy or stiff?

The voice was silent, but he knew that if he waited it would speak to him again, would tell him to get the lighter. It might even yell at him. That would be awful. He had to do it. Quickly—as quick as he could. Kai’s breath was coming in quick, rattling gasps. He took a deep breath and held it, stood paralyzed for a moment.

Do it.

The voice was like a shove at his back. Kai scurried to the body, squatted.

Other one , the voice said before Kai even had time to lift his left hand. He reached with his right, slipped two fingers into her pocket.

Her hip felt stiff through the denim of her jeans. It didn’t feel as bad as he’d feared, but it was still bad. He felt the pointed tip of the lighter, but couldn’t reach it.

Pull her flat.

That would mean touching her, really touching her. Kai so desperately didn’t want to do that.

Whimpering, he scooted back, grasped her feet by her tattered shoes, squeezed his eyes closed. As soon as he pulled, the shoes slipped off. His belly roiling with disgust, he half flung, half dropped them, then grasped her spongy, swollen ankles and pulled .

The body slid forward inch by inch, then suddenly her head lolled to the left and she dropped, hard, to the floor. Not thinking, just wanting to get it over with, Kai shoved his hand into her pocket, closed his fingers around the long, thin lighter.

A moment later he was in the bay, running.

Trash for fire.

The voice was right—this bay had much more trash than the others. Kai ran around picking up as much as he could carry before returning to the second bay.

Moments later, he had a small fire burning. The heat felt marvelous on his fingers, his cheeks, his nose. The orange light pushed back the shadows and the darkness, made a place that was his in a way he couldn’t put into words.

Better. Yes. Collect more trash.

Kai did as he was told, checking the last bay and returning with another armful of trash, which he set in a pile near the fire.