It was pitch black and we spoke to one another in little whispers in the mechanic’s office; I was only able to make out the vaguest shapes before I struck my lantern alive and sat it on a desk. Dust levitated in the air and the room was small and Dave hesitantly sat in the plastic swivel chair behind the desk. Old papers stuck to the desk’s surface, all but becoming one with the object. Lining the walls of the office, laid upon the floor were old boxes of tinned food or oils or scraps of blanket for comfort. On the far wall was the only exit to the room, leading to the exterior of the shop; there were no windows. Everything had a coating of dust—it’d been quite some time since I’d used the safehouse because I’d never been delighted with camping overnight on the ground level of a building. I moved to a wall where there were strewn blankets, found a tough and coarse one then tossed it on the ground, straightening it into a square. Dave watched me, totally quietly.

Kneeling in the square, I removed my pack from my shoulder and sat my camping stove there. Once I’d settled in front of it with my legs crossed, I took out a deep aluminum pan and turned to Dave who’d leaned across the desk with his head resting in both of his palms.

“Hungry?” I asked him.

“Sure.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m just fascinated. I had no idea how you survived out here all on your own.” His eyes scanned the wall with stacked boxes of cans. “Seems you’re set.”

“It took a long time to collect.” I began dumping corn, tomatoes, and beans into the pan. “It won’t taste great, but it will be warm and filling.”

“What’s the furthest south you’ve ever been?”

“Georgia. Do you know it?”

He nodded. “Furthest north?”

“Not much further than Golgotha.”

“So, you’ve never even been up to see the great valleys?”

I shook my head and lit a cigarette.

“Even I’ve seen them, granted it was when I was so young, I hardly remember them. What about west?” He seemed eager.

“No more than Ebenezer. I think. That’d be somewhere in Kansas if you know anything about it.”

“Damn,” Dave scratched his cheek, “Haven’t heard of it.”

“There ain’t a lot out that way anymore. Reminds me of down south. Used to be some places down there.” I shook the pan with one hand and flicked ash across the blanket with the one holding the cigarette. “It’s all dead now. Maybe there’s something. Probably not.”

“Everyone always talks about how there’s other places. I’ve seen some. I think a lot of young people wouldn’t know Pittsburgh if it was on the horizon, but when I was little, we’d go there sometimes.”

I nodded. “It’s dead. No use worrying about it now.”

“Seems like places have gone more infested since then.” He rounded the desk, leaving the swivel chair to protest at him ascending off it. The smell from the concoction in the pan filled the office; it wasn’t much but I dashed some salt across it before giving it a shake. “What do you think about it?”

“Killin’ the Bosses?”

Dave nodded and sat on the floor with me, removing his pack and his shirt; he flapped a hand in front of him to cool himself. “Well?”

“I think you’re not the first that would’ve tried. You’ve seen them. You’ve seen them use the stocks; I know you have. You’ve seen them strip men, women, children—beat them in the street with sticks. You’ve seen the sorts of pain they bring. What makes you think you’d stand a chance against anything like that?” I studied him while he craned back on his arms for support and stared at the black ceiling overhead. “You’re too soft for it.”

“Yeah,” he snapped, jerking his head down to stare right into my eyes, “Maybe I’m soft. Maybe I am. But you,” a smirk formed, “You aren’t. You get invited to little banquets. You know them and can get close.”

“The hell you say.” I took a long drag from the cigarette and blew it over my shoulder.

“I know you could, so why don’t you? Why haven’t you?”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t you want to leave a better world than when you came into it?”

“Tried that.” I shook the pan again and let it simmer. “It’s a fool’s game.”

Dave scoffed. “Ridiculous.”

“You expect me to walk into the hall of Bosses and what? Think I can kill ‘em all?”

“So, we start a revolution. That’s what we do. A revolution. I know people that’d agree.”

“They’ll string you up the wall or worse. Remember what they do to their enemies? Remember what they did to Lady? She’s a prime example of the punishment that revolution brings.”

“It wouldn’t be like that.”

“No? You don’t remember it? How long have you lived in Golgotha? How many years? You remember. It’s the changing of seasons, the negotiation of one warlord for another. Revolution’s for idiots. I say we scrape by.” I held up my thumb and forefinger to demonstrate how close one might need to scrape by. “That. That’s what we do. Anything more and you’re asking for it.”

“Well,” he laid his shirt out by his side, flat so that it might dry from his sweat, “I guess I took the tinman for having a heart.”

“Oh, you’re so clever—you know a story. Guess you should know about the tinman’s friend. The one made of straw. You remember what he was missing?”

“You sayin’ we’re friends?”

“You would take it to mean that.”

“And you think I’ve never met someone with a chip on their shoulder before. Your ideas are easy. It’s a coward’s way.”

“Watch it.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Henry believed in it, and I believed like you. He was young and hopeful.”

I took a puff from my cigarette while keeping my attention on the pan. “You’ve seen what young and hopeful does.”

Although I didn’t look at him, I felt his presence tense up. “What a thing to say to someone.”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s the thing you should hear.”

We ate the vegetable concoction in relative quiet; it wasn’t flavorful, but the warmth brought my bones to relaxing and we pushed against the desk with our backs, remaining on the floor while we finished.

It was sometime in the dead of the night that a far and dreamlike noise roused me—it was the voice of a human (unmistakably so) from somewhere far off and it was initially so faint and distorted that one could’ve mistaken it for an animal or beast if they’d convinced themselves of such. Within my first few blinks of coming to wake, I attempted to do just that, but as I tiredly scanned the direction of Dave and saw him already on his feet, frightened eyes staring back at me; cut against the darkness as a shape, he towered.

“What’s that?” he breathed at me.

I attempted to brush it off. “Nothing to worry about.”

“It sounds like a boy. He sounds like he’s in trouble.”

I shook my head. “Go back to sleep.”

“Shh. It’s getting closer, I think.” Seconds passed. “It is!” He snatched a lantern and lit it, so the small office was bathed in yellow.

“Leave it be. It’s none of our business.”

Dave shot a look at me I didn’t care for. “You really are a coward.” With that, he bolted for the door leading out into the night and twisted the lock before swinging the door out into the nothingness of the ruins.

“If you go out there,” at this point, I’d scrambled to my feet and had readied myself for any terrible thing to propel through the entryway, “If you do, goddammit, you had better not come back.”

He shook his head then disappeared into the night; his shadow was visible for moments and then it wasn’t, and he was nothing more than the glow of the lantern he’d taken, and I was in darkness again. I moved to the door and blinked but could see nothing against the shadows of the tall buildings—I focused on Dave’s lantern and felt it draw me out but fought the pull.

“Hello!” shouted Dave, “Hello! Is anyone out here? I heard your yelling!”

“Idiot,” I whispered from the doorway.

“Hey! Are you out here?” The lantern swung around wildly as though he was scanning his immediate area; he’d come upon a wall across a street and so the light he carried painted his shadow high upon a wall.

Then the voice came again, clearer than ever “Help!” but I couldn’t tell from where, as the echo carried it all around. It was certainly a young voice, scared. Probably a boy like Dave had said. “I’m lost! Something’s after me! I’m hurt! Please help!”

“Here!” Dave shouted; his wall shadow waved an arm around wildly. “Can you see me?”

“I’m trying! I’ve been hurt and something’s out here! Something’s cut me bad!” shrieked the voice.

My intestines twisted around, and I left the doorway after snatching a light of my own, moving over a display of shadow-cast rubble, tripping towards Dave while igniting my lantern. “Hello?” I shouted. Moonlight splintered through apertures of the tall buildings poorly so that most everything was difficult to see. “Dave! Get back inside goddammit!”

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Only several yards from safety, I saw a smaller shadow plunge into the halo around Dave and pull itself along on all fours before meeting him and staggering to a full stand. The small figure threw its right arm around Dave, and he seemed to take the burden easily, moving from the wall, through the street, near me on the other side. “It’s a boy!” Dave laughed nervously, “I think he’ll be alright. Did you hear that?” he asked the boy, “You’ll be alright.”

A cat-like hiss came from somewhere in the blackness of the towering structures from somewhere up high. Then it came again, but closer, and I moved quickly to Dave to take up the boy on his other side and we moved along in a circle of light; strangely a liquid dampened me where the boy crooked an arm around my lowered neck, and I knew immediately that it was blood. Indeed, the boy was injured. The smell off him was immediate. “Hurry,” I said, “It’s watching us. It’s got his scent.”

No one confirmed they heard me, but I felt a presence in the dark ahead. The office was merely running steps away and the boy’s muscles had given to exhaustion, so we pulled him along on the tips of his shoes.

“Take him,” I spoke to Dave, slipping from beneath the boy’s arm, and taking ahead with my lantern. The hiss came again and there were two white orbs caught in a happenstance of brief moonlight, eyes resting in a face of waxen skin, sickly and damned. “Alukah!” I shouted at the thing. It stepped into the radius of my light, and I swung at it with my lantern, giving the flame a series of hiccups where each of us strobed. “Dave! Run ahead. Take him inside!” The creature’s mouth grimaced, exposing a series of fangs along its round mouth, standing off its black gums; a hiss escaped its throat and I saw it twist around to pace the edge of my light, moving from the pathway to the office; its spine arched high, each vertebra pointed, countable; its long black hair hung off its rattish face and it moved like a distorted person on its hind legs, impossibly long pale arms hung before itself and swayed side to side with each of its steps.

Dave darted past us, launching the boy into the room first then spinning around to call after me, “Come on!”

Hesitantly, I stepped sideways to keep the thing in my sight, all the while being sure not to make eye contact. A pulse was in my ears. “Don’t come any closer,” I said to the thing.

Fast as a whip, it took a swipe at me with one of its incredibly long arms while I swung my lantern in the opposite direction, meeting its knuckles with the glass protector. Fire exploded across its forearm and where the oil landed, light took to it until the creature was partially ablaze and I ran, leaving the destroyed lamp behind. The Alukah screamed in agony—the singe of its skin was audible. It barked before launching itself away on its muscular hind legs while I scurried through the door into the office.

Dave slammed the door shut, relocked it and the howl of the creature came more and more till it receded somewhere far off and we turned our attention to the boy that’d been deposited by the desk; the young man was perhaps sixteen or so, skin and bone so that his blood-stained clothes hung off him poorly, and his hair was long, and his face was sickly.

“Thank you,” said Dave.

I said nothing and snatched the light from Dave, holding it before my face to examine the boy better in its glow. He’d stuffed his left arm beneath his right armpit and stared blankly between his knees; it took me a moment, but upon kneeling by him, I could see that in his right hand he was holding something. I sighed and waved Dave over. “Get the stove and turn it on,” I said.

“Hmm?” asked Dave, leaning over my shoulder to see. “Oh.” His voice came soft.

The boy was holding his left hand, severed clean from its wrist, in his right hand and he’d tucked the nub into his right armpit; his lips trembled, and his eyes darted like a panicked animal when I reached out for his severed hand.

“Don’t take it,” said the boy, “It’s mine.”

I nodded, “I know it is. It’s yours. You’ll get it back, but first I need you to drop it and let me see your wound.”

Our eyes met. He looked tired. The stove clinked to life when Dave twisted its knob and the boy relaxed his shoulders and I took the cold hand, setting it to the side.

“Let’s see it then,” I said.

He blew air from pursed lips and nodded, untucking his left wrist from under his armpit; the blood had scabbed to his clothes there and so when he pulled the wrist away, his shirt clung for a moment, and he let go of a hiss at the pain. The red muscle stood exposed, steaming warm in the open air but I could see no bone peeking through. The wrist wept freely, and I clamped a hand around his forearm. He winced and his eyes went unfocused.

I shifted on my knee to look at Dave. “Gimme’ your belt,” I said.

He offered it freely, ripping it from his waist. I took the belt around the boy’s arm and tightened it before tucking the excess. With that done, I removed my own belt, folded it fat and told the boy to bite into it.

“Stove’s hot,” said Dave.

I reached out and touched the boy’s cheek. “This is gonna’ be shitty.”

The boy nodded.

Me and Dave both held the squirming young man while we took his nub to the stove’s hot eye. Blood boiled around the wound, fizzing while sending up blackish smoke. He screamed through the belt, and I heard the leather in his mouth crackle as he motioned his jaw back and forth.

There was a fair enough amount of kicking and screaming; all the while, the most prominent thought on my mind was that I’d have been better off had I smashed Dave’s skull in. They drew too much attention, made too much noise, cared too much.

The cries of the boy subsided and became sniffles as I took to wrapping his wound and removing the belts from him; there was now a set of permanent teeth marks in the leather. Once I’d medicined the boy, he remarked over his missing hand, and I returned it. Taking to shaking sleep, he held the thing to his chest with his remaining hand.

Once he was probably asleep, Dave and I sat around the desk, him on the chair and me on stacked boxes—I lit a cigarette and cut my eyes at him. “Would’ve been better to leave him.”

Dave shook his head. “How could you say that?”

“Bunch of liabilities.”

Ignoring this, he asked, “What was that thing? You called it something strange.”

“It’s an old name.” I shrugged. “We should move on real early. As soon as the sun’s out. We’ve made a lot of noise. I hope you’re ready to watch after him. That’s your reward for being a hero.”

“You helped.”

“I don’t like seeing people die, believe it or not.”

“No. I think you’d rather plug your ears and close your eyes to it all.” There was a pause and Dave leaned his elbows onto the desk and placed his head in his hands. “Shouldn’t we move before daybreak then? If you’re so worried.”

“Not while that things out there and knows good and well where we are.”

“Won’t it just break down that door?”

I shook my head. “Needs an invitation.”

Dave eyed the sleeping kid. “Poor guy.”

As the first daylight poured over the ruins, I stirred the young man awake and at first it seemed as though he wouldn’t and then perhaps one issue would’ve solved itself; the boy came to life after a few nudges against my boot and he looked miserable and pale and cold. He let out a stifled cry upon seeing me stand over him and then he pushed himself into a sit then examined his surroundings.

I arranged my supplies and Dave asked the kid, “How is it?”

“How do you think it is?” asked the kid.

“I’m Dave anyway.” Then he nodded in my direction, “Harlan.”

“Andrew,” said the kid.

I froze in my gathering of supplies then shouldered my pack and looked over the young man—beneath his armpit he still cradled the dead hand. “You came out here with a young girl several days ago. Went out west?”

Andrew wrinkled his nose then nodded.

“Hell,” said Dave, “How’d you know that?”

“Gemma?” I asked.

The kid nodded again.

Dave sighed and brushed his hand over his head. “You’re the fella’ that disappeared with a Boss’s daughter.” Then there was the overt clenching of his jaw. “You created a heap of trouble when you did that. You know that?”

Andrew did not say a thing.

I stepped toward the kid, and he flinched. “The two of you went west. How’d you get split up?” I shook my head and took to lighting a cigarette. “How’d you not die out there?”

Andrew shrugged. “Gem ran and I couldn’t find her.”

“Why’d you do it?” asked Dave. “Do you have any idea the misery you two left behind?”

“Hold on,” I put up a hand, “Tell it plainly Andy.”

“My name’s not Andy,” said the kid, “It’s Andrew.”

“Fine.”

“Gem wanted out from her duties as the heir to Boss Harold. She said she hoped for a place out west. She said that’s where the wizards come from and so there must be a place worth going. Maybe Babylon—maybe something more out there.” The kid had a scaredness in his eyes, a real twinkle of defeat, but there was something else too—beyond those shiny wet eyes was the look of a determined soul perhaps. “She took off when she got scared and then I got all turned around. I even saw the walls of home, but when I met the edge of the field in the day, the men on the walls shot at me. I tried screaming, but I don’t think they heard me.”

“Stupid kids,” I said.

“Now hold on,” said Dave, “This kid’s caused more trouble than he’s worth. Do you know the people that’ve died because of you runnin’ off with the Boss’s daughter like that? Do you have any idea?” Dave took across the room and grabbed Andrew by the shoulders and shook him good and hard and the boy dropped his severed hand where it smacked the ground. “Do you?” The man was screaming at the kid.

Reaching out, I touched Dave. “Calm. It’s time to move. We can make it home easily before nightfall.” I turned my attention to Andrew. “I don’t reckon you’ll have the warmest welcome if you follow.”

“Well wait,” pleaded Andrew, “You can’t leave me out here. I’ll die for sure.”

“Hey,” I said, “You wanted the opportunity to walk the wastes and find something better. Now’s your chance. Go for it.”

“No,” said Dave. The big man’s shoulders slumped, and he moved from the boy and when he did so the young man reached to the ground to pluck up the hand he’d dropped, “We can’t leave him out here.”

“You finally admitted yourself,” I said, “He’s far more trouble than he’s worth.”

“I-is Gem alright?” asked Andrew.

I nodded.

A relief rushed across his face before he swallowed. “Good.”

“Daylight’s burnin’.” I put the cigarette out against the edge of the desk. “We should go.”

We took off from the office and into the ruins where earliest sunbeams cut through narrow alleys and the sky was red and the buildings were gray or black and every sound carried far and back and there was a warmth in the air like moving through thick blood. Wherever I went, the two followed with paranoid expressions at every potential threat; whenever we’d skirt across a stretch of road where the debris was lighter for travel, one of them might kick up a loose bit of rubble and freeze for a moment as though it was the harbinger for what creatures might’ve been watching from dark shadows. But we were alone in the ruins for the time because I could hear nothing, could see nothing, smelled nothing beyond the dust. “I’ve seen some of them,” hushed Andrew to either me or Dave and I pivoted around to stare at him till he was ashamed of speaking and we moved on again.

The dirt in the air was thick and wind kicked up around the tall buildings and the narrow strip of sky overhead, cut out by high rooftops was like a riverway where thin and white vaporous clouds listed. “What’ll we do with the kid when we get home?” asked Dave; I tried giving him the same look I’d given to Andrew and the merry troupe was quiet as we came upon the edge of the field around Golgotha, and we could just see the structures that cut against the sky along the tops of the walls. I ordered the two of them to manufacture a small semi-circle shelter from strewn concrete and when they started it, I dropped my pack and took in helping them with it so that within half an hour, we took refuge within a small and temporary cairn shaped structure.

We drank water and cooled ourselves within the meager shade.

Andrew was timid in asking, “What’s going to happen? Will you sneak me in?” He cradled his hand.

“It’s just a little further,” I said.

Dave peered across the field with his binoculars and slammed back water. “Lot of wall men. Maybe wait till dark?”

I shook my head. “We’ll be marching in front and that’s that.”

Dave raised his brow. “What? They’ll kill the boy.”

“I don’t think so.”

Andrew piped in, “I don’t want to do this.”

“Shh.” I was tired; travelling companions, for their utility, could be a bother. “You’ll need to trust me.” The kid held his severed hand. “And give me that.”

He shook his head.

“I’ll give it back. It’s yours after all. What am I going to do with three hands?”

Shaking and still pale, he dispensed with the hand and Dave handed him water and I pushed the dry and dead thing into my pack.

We moved across the field, me waving a reflective flag over my head; a shot rang out but nowhere near us and I saw Andrew flinch at the noise. Dave fell in alongside me.

“They’ll kill him,” said Dave just so the kid couldn’t hear.

“They might,” I admitted, “But he needs someplace to look after that wound properly and I don’t think he’s up for living in the wastes alone.”

There was a moment where all that could be heard was breathing and footsteps and dirt catching across the ground with wind. “And have you given anymore thought to what I came to you for?”

“After. We’ll talk after. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m scared,” whimpered Andrew.

“Be brave,” said Dave.

We took to the gate as it swung open and there was Maron with his wall men, yards from the opening, some knelt behind sandbags; their guns were angled at us and Maron was grinning. “Is that who I think it is?” The Boss nodded at the boy as we came through the perimeter—some of the wall men snickered or muttered amongst themselves.

“It is,” I put away the reflective flag and pinched Andrew’s shirt and shoved him forward so he stumbled, “We came across him out in the ruins out east and thought the Bosses might be interested in speaking with him.”

Andrew whirled on his heel and looked at me and Dave and I shook my head at him; his attention went back to Maron, and the Boss Sheriff stepped forward, planting a hand on the young boy’s shoulder, really digging a thumb into collarbone, and making the boy wince and bite his lip. He gave the boy to his wall men, they caught the young man and took him into custody. They tried tying his hands behind his back, but without purchase, they instead kicked the back of his knees and dragged him away; he did not scream or cry.

I could feel the nervous energy in waves from Dave as he took in closer to me.

Maron swiveled forward awkwardly so we were only feet from each other, still wearing his stolen leg brace, and he eyed Dave with a raised eyebrow. “Man with the name of a king, I think. David! I knew your wife.” Silence. “Shame about your boy. So, you’ve taken on with this one?” Maron nodded at me and spat at the ground. “Guess without so much to live for you’ve gone and thrown your life away! You know what happens to the poor souls that go with Harlan here.” Maron had taken a hand to his heart as though he spoke sincerely—the tone was proper, but his smile was wrong.

Dave refused to speak and that was all for the best.