Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die

With his wounds mending and the swelling reduced, Titus could stand with crutches he’d fashioned from two oars, though he still seemed an inch from collapse. Jonah had eyed Titus’s recovery closely, as one would a rousing sea monster. Then the day came when Titus could ambulate with only one crutch. “Remember when you said that once he’s better and completely dangerous again, we’re out of here?” said Jonah. “Well, he’s better.”

“But what if Marcus comes back like he said?” said Will. “What if he gets the money for his boat and needs Titus to help him?”

“Marcus never said anything to me about a boat. So who knows if Titus is telling the truth. He may have hallucinated the whole thing,” Jonah said. “By now Marcus is either already dead or he’s left Thunder Bay forever. There’s not much room left in between.”

“He could still be hiding? Another shack, farther out? We could go exploring.”

“Have you got any letters from school lately?” Jonah said.

“My mom is afraid of mail, remember?”

“Well, I have. They’re sending me to Templeton next year — you know, the school for future inmates? They said I’m not participating and missed too many days. So I’m out.”

“What about medical school?” Will gasped.

Jonah shook his head, and his face flushed. “I don’t think Templeton is an institution that really screams doctor material on your application,” he said, his head hanging. “It’s mostly Indians there, so they’ll probably take their time before they ship you, too, Will. But it’ll happen soon enough if we don’t go back.”

“Let them. We’ll be together. You can teach yourself to be a doctor,” Will said. “I never liked school anyway. I only went there to find Marcus. But now Titus is our only lead. Something’s going to happen soon. I can feel it.”

“We did a good thing and took care of him. You were right about that. But anyone who talks about blood that much doesn’t have at least a little on their hands. What if in one of his moods Titus did something to Marcus and doesn’t even remember? And even if he didn’t, he’s still dangerous. So I’m out of here, and you’re coming with me.”

At the thought of losing his only friend, Will was swamped with a great weariness. He’d been investigating the Outside for so long, but he knew he still lacked the courage to face it alone.

“Okay,” Will said. “You’re right. He is more dangerous now. We can stake the place out, watch him from a distance.”

While they were packing up their tape player and tools and backpacks on the Distribution Floor, Titus crutched his way in. “Getting scarce,” he said nodding. “I do appraise you Icaruses tending to me while I was downtrodden. That was a queasy one. And I’ve liked spectating this little war you’ve manufactured for yourselves,” he said, gesturing to the ramps. “But I divine that you Icaruses might be interested in some extraneous travails before you scatter.”

“You mean work?” said Will. Beside him, Jonah crossed his arms.

“Here is three hundred dollars each,” Titus said, pulling six bills from his parka. “That’s for deeds you already completed. You boys can appropriate some new roller platforms.”

“Skateboards,” said Jonah as Will plucked the bills carefully. It was more cash than he’d held in his life, not counting his mother’s checkbook.

“And I’m financing each Icarus three hundred more when this new act’s through,” said Titus.

“What’s the job?” said Will.

“Stealing from people’s yards?” said Jonah, and Will shot him a look.

“Not succinctly,” Titus said. “A task Marcus didn’t stay put to see out. But I’ll have to exhibit it to you.”

Will dragged Jonah aside. “We can save the money for when we move to California to skate all year long,” Will whispered enthusiastically. “If anything happens, we’ll run. This could be what we’ve been waiting for.”

“I’m just curious when exactly you got crazier than Marcus?” Jonah said, shaking his head, running the money between his fingers, before he agreed.

They exited the workhouse through the boiler and began their climb down, during which Titus coughed and spat from every open window. After a few flights, Titus’s breathing grew increasingly pained, his face ashen as the elevator’s walls. At the bottom, Titus doubled over and muttered curses between long gasps. When he recovered, they passed an open grain chute that Jonah kicked a piece of rubble into. A chilling sound issued from deep below, like rushing water.

“Rats,” said Titus. “A majority in the bins now. Only takes a pair to tumble down to birth a hive. With no exit they’re chomping their way to the floor of all that forgotten grain. When they arrive there they’ll have at each other. Don’t go falling in, Icaruses. After nothing but stale wheat berries for decades, they’ll be game for some protein.”

They trudged Outside through muddy snow, past the towering disused iron-ore dock and the shuttered shipbuilding yard down by the river mouth. During the walk, Titus fell quiet, carefully planting his crutch in the slush. Soon they passed another elevator, like Pool 6 in design, but smaller.

Titus pointed his crutch upward. “I toiled down here as a whelp. A single of those bins can hide the yearly output of a hundred farms. That’s millions of bushels — all told,” he said asthmatically. “During the war, we were the only zone shipping wheat anywhere. Feeding the entire sphere! How’s that, Icaruses?”

“Fascinating,” said Jonah, and Will was relieved that Titus’s particular insanity made him mostly numb to sarcasm.

“Now look at us,” Titus said, gesturing incomprehensibly. Will wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or Thunder Bay. “Only enough grain to keep the Butler’s stills going.”

“Wait, you worked here? In the elevators? My uncle and my grandfather both did, too,” Will said as they walked. “Did you know my uncle, Charlie Cardiel?”

Titus nodded and dropped his gaze.

“What was he like?”

“Oh,” Titus said, “he was tethered. And he banged up some of the populace he shouldn’t have. But he was just a colt. And would’ve atoned for it if allowed the timeline.” After that he fell quiet again. They pressed farther, crossing a rail junction where some men with a few large dogs communed next to a pile of burning garbage near the tracks, stealing predatory glances at their group.

“Is that the Butler?” Will said, flash frozen, hazarding a glance in their direction.

“Nope,” Titus said without looking over. “Those hobgoblins don’t exist.” Then he coughed loudly, his breathing a burst air mattress. “This is us here,” he said, leading them into an abandoned structure of crumbling brick, a hundred feet back from the lake. Inside was a busted ecosystem of garbage and gears and decomposing gulls and rusty clutter, as though the factory had been perfectly repurposed to manufacture squalor. They passed through a warren of unlit hallways and came to a steel door, on top of it a small window.

“Who yearns for a boost?” Titus said.

Will and Jonah regarded each other.

“Is this the job Marcus was supposed to do for you?” said Jonah.

“A fashion like it,” Titus said.

“Well,” Jonah said, “let’s get this over with. Safer in there than out here with you two nutters.” Will lifted Jonah’s foot, and he vaulted gracefully through the opening above.

Will stood in the hallway, body tensed and ready to sprint, while Titus swayed like a chopped-at tree.

“You needed Marcus to unlock this from the other side, huh?” Jonah said when he opened the door before them, but Titus didn’t answer as he plunged Inside. Long tables and rusty chairs crowded the big room, which may have once been a cafeteria. Some windows overlooked the junk-drawer factory floor through which they’d just passed. “Those rubber?” Titus said, pointing at their wrecked skateboard shoes that they insisted on wearing throughout winter. “Hope so,” he said. “Still some living wires snaking about.”