Michelle Muckley - The Dawn - The Bombs Fall

The smell of urine hung in the air and he could feel the filth settling on his skin. The room was crowded with office style armchairs, modern at the time of the war, dirty and pulled apart at the seams today. Some of them had been pushed together to form settees. There were coffee tables littered with pills and bottles that looked like water containers but he doubted that it was water in them. He picked one up, brought it up to his nose. Moonshine. No matter how far life on the other levels had fallen below what he would have once deemed acceptable, this place was something else. There was no order here anymore. He had heard that the upper levels were a mess, but he had never seen it for himself. Even the Guardian was a mess. And where were the others? He leant down to place the bottle back on the table and as he did so he saw another child, a bit smaller than Billy, sitting in the middle of the floor. It was a girl and she was almost naked, save some sort of nappy, a makeshift effort that was grey from dirt and appeared to be soaked through. Her hair clung to her scalp, slicked by grease to her forehead. She caught Zack’s eye and she smiled and giggled as she said something, words that didn’t seem like language. She seemed too big for her age, like an oversized baby.

“Where are Billy’s parents?” He crouched down, and the child reached out to him. He took her hand in his. “Do you know Billy?” Zack said to the girl.

“Biwwy,” the girl mumbled.

“Where are his parents? Do you know them?” he said pulling her hand away from his cheek. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t because she was dirty. That it was just haste that forced him back. “Tell me where they are.”

The girl pointed in the direction of the nearest chairs. There were several men and woman all asleep or passed out, their limbs interwoven and tangled like weeds. There was a layer of smoke in the air, smoke that refused to filter away because there was nowhere for it to filter to. He stood upright, moved towards the bodies. There was a woman lying on the other side of the couch, spaced out and unresponsive. Zack coughed as the smoke hit the back of his throat. Where the hell had anybody got cigarettes from?

“Wake up,” Zack shouted, nudging the woman with his fist. “Are you Billy’s mother?” She didn’t reply and seemed so flat that he felt the need to check for a pulse. He picked up her wrist and found her fingers to be even browner than his. He placed his fingertips against her tattooed skin until he felt something to prove she was alive. “Hey!” he shouted again, this time shaking her. She grunted and her face twisted as he gripped her arms. “Wake up!” he shouted as he slapped her across the face. Some of the other people in the Mess Room started to rouse. One of them spoke but Zack didn’t wait to listen to him. If this was Billy’s mother she was good for nothing. She wasn’t going to offer to help him. He tossed her arm side and stood up.

“Biwwy bad,” said the girl on the floor. “Biwwy gone.” Zack felt an urge to pick her up, to take her with him. He had little parental instinct that he knew of and yet he felt drawn to her because to leave her here felt like a crime. He hesitated in the space between the child and door, before telling himself that Billy needed his attention more. He turned away from the girl, not knowing what else he could say to her. He paced up the corridor, avoiding the bodies on the floor. He thought of Ronson and how much he seemed to want to get into Delta, but Zack knew that he would rather live in the sublevels than on this level. He pushed open the door and Billy was still lying there.

“Billy,” Zack said as he knelt down at his side. This time Billy didn’t respond when Zack shook him. Zack felt for a pulse. It was weak. He scooped Billy up, ignoring the smell of damp clothes. He charged down the stairs, his feet skipping two steps at a time. It was only a minute later that he arrived on level twelve.

“You have to help this child!” Zack said as he swung through the doors of the sick bay, the nearest thing to a doctor or a hospital in Delta. There was a man lying on the couch getting a tattoo, another number on his wrist, an ode to the recently announced Omega Lottery. There were three people waiting in turn, all with their sleeves rolled up. Each one had their plastic card in hand, ready to hand over their credits for the bleak chance of a better life. “Do something!”

The waiting crowd all turned to stare at the boy, hanging like a withered flower in Zack’s arms. The man getting the tattoo jumped up from the bed, and after reminding the tattoo artist that he would have to finish the job afterwards, made room for the child. Zack laid Billy on the bed, his limbs dangling away from him like a puppet without its master, his eyes open but absent.

“I’m not a doctor,” screamed the man, still holding the tattoo gun. He was staring at Billy. He looked scared. “What am I supposed to do?”

“This is the sick bay!” Zack shouted. “You have to do something. You have been trained.”

“I have been trained to dress a wound, put on a bandage. I might be able to clean a burn, but what can I do for him? Where did you find him?” The hands of the tattoo artist had started to shake. One of the men from the queue got up and slipped out of the door. Zack didn’t see him leave.

“I found him up on level forty eight. Just do something. Anything,” Zack pleaded. The tattoo artist put down his gun, and stood back.

“On forty eight? And you bring him here? God knows what he’s got.” He picked up a canister of water and unscrewed the lid. Zack assumed that he was about to give Billy a drink, but instead he raised the canister to his own lips. He took a gulp of the water before saying, “It’s a right mess up there.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which Zack saw was covered in a black and red tribal tattoo, the same as his face.

Zack grabbed the man by the collar of his overall and shoved him against the far wall, the water spilling from the canister onto the floor. “Are you fucking serious?” Zack screamed, the tattooed man clamouring for the back of his head as it struck the cement behind him. Those waiting leapt from their seats. One of them reached towards Zack and pulled him back by the arms. Zack shook him away as swiftly as he would bat a fly, and his arms flew free. “He’ll die!”

“Go easy, man. It’s not like it’s your kid.” The tattoo artist and would-be first aider, bigger and heavier set than Zack, put down his water canister and pushed Zack away before straightening up his clothes. “What am I supposed to do?”

“He needs to drink,” said Zack turning to look at Billy. “His name is Billy. He is dehydrated.” Zack flopped back into the nearest seat, and the others who were waiting their turn inched away from the smell which he was carrying on his damp clothes. “He needs help. Kids need help.”

Silence swallowed the room whilst everybody except for Zack stood staring at the child. One of them touched Billy’s arm, picked it up like you might a rag under which you had trapped a spider. He let go of the arm and it flopped back onto the couch and Billy didn’t flinch. The thud of the arm hitting the couch was enough to wake the tattoo artist from his trance. “Sit him up,” he said to the man with the half-finished tattoo. “Come on,” he said pulling on the sleeve of the reluctant would be Samaritan. “Help me.” Together they sat Billy up and began dripping water into his mouth. The facial tattoos made the first aider look like a Maori warrior. “He has to drink something,” he said, echoing Zack’s sentiments. He held up the water bottle to Billy’s lips and a few drops passed into his mouth. He turned to Zack. “What were you doing up there? I wouldn’t go up there.”