Night Song of the Wild Things

I am an old woman, I can ride still, but I cross Bridges on power bikes just as the young do. It’s safest to travel them between blocks.

When I was young, before the world bent against itself, and our land was left in desolation, the Bridges were called Highways. I remember that. I even have a few dim and scattered memories of when things were easy, but life has been hard since the desolation came. If you dare to travel between the blocks by the lower trails, you run the risk of attacks. There aren’t monsters like there always seemed to be in the old science fiction books I’ve read that were written when humanity was still spoiled and soft. It’s just wild things; dogs, coyotes, mountain cats, bears; the only monsters are a type of people who were brutal, too vicious and had to be run out of the blocks. They hide in the high buildings left standing, and sometimes if they’re close enough to the Bridges they’ll scream out and threaten people from the blocks, but we mostly stay separate. The wild things don’t like the smell of people, and they have prey to hunt in the lowlands, so we stay separate from them too. Sometimes block leaders will take groups of people into the lowlands to scavenge, in the middle of the day the wild things are usually resting after their morning hunts. One thing you never want to do is get caught in the lowlands in the dark. It’s dangerous to be on the bridges at night, too.

To make the Bridges safe between Blocks - which would have been neighborhoods in the old times but are now blocked and boarded up with only one protected track leading off to the Bridges – all the access points are lined with razor wire. It’s effective with the wild things, but not the lowland people. They’ll climb the gates and the fences. Patrols run to repair places where the lowlanders pull the razor wire back, it doesn’t happen often, but we do what we have to do to stay safe.

I am a messenger, one of 7 in the south Block. On my days I carry news to west Block and Elysian.

I remember radios from when I was younger, but the EMP’s took all the electrics out. We’ve been able to rebuild some mechanized transportation by scavenging random things, power bikes are the most common vehicles. Small engines were devised, and solar power panels raided from buildings, homes, parking lots etc. and were wired into them to provide power.

No one wants to travel by night, the sound of the coyotes howling just below the Bridges terrifies most people and the few who don’t run for home are part of the Bridges patrols.

My place in the south block has three levels, and when I go up on the roof through my skylight I can see over our wall into the lowlands. You can still see where the cars used to drive but the white footpaths, and the black roads the cars used to ride on have mostly given way to green. Now that the lowlands have gone back to wild, you could almost imagine humans had never been out there, except for the bits of buildings poking through. I wish I’d been there on the last day. We were too carefree, musing on possessions. If we’d looked up from such mundane considerations we might have been prepared, but when civilization released its grip on humanity, and survival held tight, musings gave way to the pursuit of need and demand.

I was running messages on the worst stretch of Bridges whe n it began. I had goggles on and it took longer than it might otherwise have to recognize that light was blending with shadows. By the time I realized what was going on I was only a short distance from West Block headed toward the crossroads which was a connection point of bridges where a foolish man named Dino stayed on the Bridges with a cook stove and fed the Messengers. We’d trade for what he had, and he’d always give us his home brew too, which helped make the rides easy.

I pulled to the inside and slowed, coming to a stop when I was on one of the high supports. The shadows in the lowlands were far darker than those on the Bridges but the color was leaving both areas rapidly. That was when the last of the birds quieted, and the night song of the wild things began.

I’ve said already that you don’t want to be caught on Bridges at night, it’s mostly because of the song, it’s a devil symphony. The coyotes get to howling, the dogs bark first, then they too join the howls. The howling goes on for ages before it begins to be punctuated by the screams of the mountain cats who usually come down into the lowlands only at night, but here in the bone-worn tangles of what remains of the old city there are wildernesses that are closer and denser than they once were. Over the decades the predators have tripled even as their prey dwindled.

In the Blocks the greatest fear isn’t the hunger, the lack of water, or the dark rain that falls sometimes, the greatest fear for all the Blocks is the time when the prey are diminished. Will the wild things then turn on each other, or will they turn on the Blocks? 

I sat on my power bike, listening to the howls and the screams and the sound began to cause a ripple on my flesh. I listened listened for a few minutes; noting the distance of the mountain cat screams, and the all too close sound of the coyotes. They were still a mile or two off, but it was too near for my comfort with the quickly failing light. I pulled the bike around and was just about to push start when I heard an inhuman scream from behind me. A mountain cat had tried to jump through the razor wire and was caught. It snarled and screamed, letting me know it was a thing in pain. Because we have domesticated cats in the Blocks I felt sorry for it, but I was too scared of its noises to consider helping it.

I pushed start and the unpleasantly gentle hum of my power bike hissed on. I pushed the thumb-lever and my power bike moved forward, over its hum I could hear the jangling razor wire scraping across the pavement. I realized it was almost completely dark already. I looked at the horizons looking for the telltale glow of the end of the day and as I whipped my head around I noticed a crescent moons through the shadows the trees cast in what ambient glow remained. I realized it wasn’t an early night, it was an eclipse.

A mighty scream ripped across the night from the mountain cat as it finally untangled itself from the cutting razors, and with ears back and a death snarl it began chasing me. I don’t think I’ve urged a power bike to peak speed before, and wasn’t sure I’d make it. I raced forward, dodging the rusted heaps left on the Bridges in the final twilight of civilization.

It was painfully slow but I began to outstrip the feral thing by grimace inducing inches. It was close enough that  I could hear its paws slapping the ground behind me. Intermittently it would screech, I’d whip my head back to see if I was about to lose the pathetically small space between myself and a gory ending. The cat would pounce forward slightly swinging a paw - claws on full display - to try to catch something of me.

As I came around the hulk of a big truck, I saw the lamp ahead, the little light that meant I’d almost reached  Dino’s cart. He had a hand raised with a spatula in it, and was waving until he saw the cat jump onto the top of the front of a dead car in the dim light of my bike;s rear taillight, and then jumped down in pursuit of me. Dino was on the Bridge with his storage cart, a small camp stove and was standing before an open truck inside which he had at some point fashioned a kind of lounge for himself to sit in between Messengers. I’d always thought it looked comfortable, but exposed. As Dino made to dive into it, I realized just how exposed and called out to him. “Get into the cab!”

Dino had one leg up onto the rear of the trailer but bringing up the other leg he immediately changed course and jumped down from the trucks rear bumper and ran towards the cab. I started weaving where there was open space between the abandoned cars. It was slow going in the strange dark of the eclipse. As I slowed to dodge and maybe to give Dino more time, I could hear other screams, howls and barks. The eclipse had brought out all the wild things.

Suddenly my back tire skidded a little, a quick glance over my shoulder told me the cat had slapped the tire. As Dino slammed the door of the truck cab and was safely inside, I shot past seeing open road beyond for the remaining space between me and the Elysian turn off. The cat wasn’t slowing and wasn’t giving up. Slowing down by Dino seemed to have renewed the cat’s sense that I was reachable. I understood all too well how small and poor a figure I made on my bike; it was barely more than a bicycle with a motorcycle’s rear wheel and its scooter engine. I imagined I looked like easy prey.

The Elysian turn off was ahead. The eclipse was passing by degrees, because I could make out some movement at the gate. Apparently Elysian Block and its leader had seen the cat. Through my goggles I thought I could see signs of rifles and people who were ready to close the tall gates. I had been leaning forward for most of this damned ride, but I leaned still further, a vain effort at willing my bike to make it through the Elysian gate before the clawed hell behind me could take me.

I saw Quinn Locke ahead, the elected mayor of Elysian Block, he was calling to me, “Come on Sephy, move it!” Ordinarily I liked his voice, for a young man he had a deep register and a lot of resonance, today the resonance was there, but the register was lost in the urgent pitch of something else, worry I think.

I yelled as I finally slid between the gates, only half aware that men were closing it behind me, and other men were lining up just behind it. The astonishingly loud sound of a shotgun caused me to whip my head around, and pull the breaks at the same time; a very bad idea in the position I was in. I lost control of the bike and lurched sideways. I knew well enough to let go of the bike and tumbled ungracefully to a stop as the bike slid beside me. I rolled a few feet further and finally came to a stop on my back, or at least as much as my full messenger bag would allow for. My googles were askew, and digging into my forehead, but for a long moment I just didn’t move. I heard screaming. It took a few moments of dazed assessment to recognize it wasn’t coming from me, it was the cat. I turned my head and in the hesitant light I saw it. I could see its eyes; it seemed wrong somehow that the day was growing lighter at the same time the cats eyes were dimming. It was looking at me as it died, every bit as much as I looked at it.

I felt sad as the life left its eyes. It was following its instincts, but in a world which relied on survival, death and life were always on opposite sides of instincts.

Mayor Locke approached, and putting his hands on his knees, he leaned over me. “Are you going to survive?”

I reached up and fixed my goggles so I could see him properly.

“Maybe, but this isn’t the day that’s going to stop me.”

Mayor Locke reached out and gripped my wrist, I gripped his and he pulled me to my feet.

I dusted myself off, grabbed my messenger bag and we walked down the turn off, “What did you think of the eclipse?” he asked me.

I barked a short laugh, “Can’t say I’m a fan.”