The Ask and the Answer

❮Chapters ❯

And I come round the biggest pile of bodies, stacked near the east wall–

And I see it.

And I fall to my knees in the frozen grass.

Written on the wall, tall as a man–

The A.

The A of the Answer.

Written in blue.

I lean my head forward slowly till it’s touching the ground, the cold sinking into my skull.

(no)

(no, it can’t be her)

(it can’t be)

My breath comes up around me as steam, melting a little spot of mud. I don’t move.

(have they done this to you?)

(have they changed you?)

(Viola?)

The blackness starts to overwhelm me, starts to fall over me like a blanket, like water rising above my head, no Viola no, it can’t be you, it can’t be you (can it?) no no no it can’t–

No–

And I sit up–

And I lean back–

And I strike myself in the face.

I punch myself hard.

Again.

And again.

Not feeling nothing as I hit.

As my lips crack open.

As my eyes swell.

No–

God no–

Please–

And I reach back to punch myself again–

But I switch off–

I feel it go cold inside me–

Deep down inside–

(where are you to save me?)

I switch off.

I go numb.

I look at the Spackle, dead, everywhere dead.

And Viola gone–

Gone in ways that I can’t even say–

(you did this?)

(you did this instead of finding me?)

And inside I just die.

And a body tumbles from the pile, knocking right into me.

I scoot back fast, rolling over other bodies, scrambling to my feet, wiping my hands on my trousers, wiping the dead away.

And then another body falls.

I look up at the pile.

1017 is working his way out.

He sees me and freezes, his head and arms sticking out from the rest of the bodies, bones showing thru his skin, thin as the dead.

Course he survived. Course he did. If any of ’em is spiteful enough to find a way to live, it’s him.

I run to the pile and I start pulling on his shoulders to get him out, to get him out from under the dead, all the dead.

We fall back as he pops free, tumbling to the ground, rolling apart and then staring at each other across the ground.

Our breaths are heavy, clouds of steam huffing into the air.

He don’t look injured, tho the sling’s gone from his arm. He’s just staring, eyes probably open as wide as mine.

“Yer alive,” I say stupidly. “Yer alive.”

He just stares back, no Noise this time, no clicking, nothing. Just the silence of us in the morning, the smoke sneaking thru the air like a vine.

“How?” I say. “How did–?”

But there ain’t no answer from him, just staring and staring.

“Did you–?” I say, then I have to clear my throat. “Did you see a girl?”

And then I hear, Thump budda-thump–

Hoofbeats down the road. Davy musta caught his pa coming the other way.

I look hard at 1017.

“Run,” I say. “You gotta get outta here.”

Thump budda-thump–

“Please,” I whisper. “Please, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, but please, just run, just run, just get outta here–”

I stop cuz he’s getting to his feet. He’s still eyeing me, not blinking, his face almost dead of expresshun.

Thump budda-THUMP–

He takes one step away, then two, then faster, heading for the blown open gate.

And then he stops and looks back.

Looks back at me.

A clear flash of Noise coming right at me.

Of me, alone.

Of 1017 with a gun.

Of him pulling the trigger.

Of me dying at his feet.

Then he turns and runs out the gate and into the woods beyond.

“I know how hard this must be for you, Todd,” says the Mayor, looking at the blown out gate. We’ve come outside. No one wanted to see the bodies any more.

“But why?” I say, trying to keep the tightness outta my voice. “Why would they do it?”

The Mayor looks at the blood on my face from where I hit myself but he don’t say nothing about it. “They thought we would have used them as soldiers, I expect.”

“But to kill them all?” I look up at him on his horse. “The Answer never killed no one before except by accident.”

“Fifty-six soldiers,” Davy says.

“Seventy-five,” the Mayor corrects. “And three hundred escaped prisoners.”

“They tried to bomb us here before, remember?” Davy adds. “The bitches.”

“The Answer have stepped up their campaign,” the Mayor says, looking mainly at me. “And we will respond in kind.”

“Damn right, we will,” Davy says, cocking his rifle for no reason.

“I’m sorry about Viola,” the Mayor says to me. “I’m as disappointed as you are that she’s a part of this.”

“We don’t know that,” I whisper.

(is she?)

(are you?)

“Regardless,” the Mayor says. “The time for your boyhood is well and truly past. I need leaders now. I need you to be a leader. Are you ready to lead, Todd Hewitt?”

“I’m ready,” Davy says, his Noise feeling like it’s being left out.

“I already know I can count on you, son.”

And there’s the pink Noise again.

“It’s Todd I need to hear from.” He comes a bit closer to me. “You’re no longer my prisoner, Todd Hewitt. We’re beyond that now. But I need to know if you’ll join me–” he nods his head towards the opening in the wall “– or them. There is no other choice.”

I look into the monastery, at all those bodies, all those shocked and dead faces, all that pointless end.

“Will you help me, Todd?”

“Help you how?” I say to the ground.

But he just asks it again. “Will you help me?”

I think of 1017, alone now, alone in the entire world.

His friends, his family for all I know, piled like rubbish, left for the flies.

I can’t stop seeing it, even when I close my eyes.

I can’t stop seeing that bright blue A.

Oh don’t deceive me, I think.

Oh never leave me.

(but she’s gone)

(she’s gone)

And I’m dead.

Inside, I’m dead dead dead.

There ain’t nothing left.

“I will,” I say. “I’ll help.”