Tourist -5-



By the time we reached the Round that branched out into the four main tunnels, all hell had broken loose. The eastern and southern tunnels were impossible to see, full of fire fed by the pollution that was standard underground. People were running, screaming...the north tunnel, the one we had just come out of, lead back to what we now called the Musician’s Quarter. The one that people were pouring out of. Escape came in the form of the west tunnel. I prayed it wouldn’t be blocked off.

Darren and I slid along a wall hastily, he had one hand up to shield himself from flying, burning debris. He froze in his tracks in front of me, and I slammed into him.

“What is it?” I yelled to make myself heard over the evacuation and fires.

“Ben!” He yelled back, a panicked look in his eyes. “His leg-”

“I’ll go back,” I said, right by his ear, and motioned over my shoulder. I turned to run from where we’d come, but he grabbed my arm.

“Be careful,” I saw him say, before letting go and running the opposite way. I stood there for another second before I realized that if I didn’t hurry, there were chances neither of us would make it out alive.

~*~*~

The quadrant was mostly empty by the time I reached it. Anyone left was running full speed in the other direction. I saw a few familiar faces, but no one cared that I was running in the wrong direction. Every man for himself.

I found Ben halfway back to Darren’s room. His leg was bleeding, his face bruised, and his hand was burned pretty badly. He leaned heavily on the burned hand against the wall, trying to use it to support his weight but failing miserably. He was readjusting a makeshift satchel he had over his shoulder when he spotted me.

“Thank God,” he breathed as I slung his arm over my shoulder.

“Can you walk?” I asked in a rush, pulling him away from the wall and urging him to follow me.

“I think so...a little.” His leg was bleeding more now, as he leaned his full weight on me and we shuffled along. I heard a too-close explosion from behind us. He glanced over his shoulder. “Did Darren get out? I went to his rooms to warn him, but I couldn’t-”

“He sent me back to find you,” I answered, trying to hurry him. “He wouldn’t have been able to support you if he’d have come himself.”

Ben nodded wearily. “He’ll go to the dumps then. There’s someone there who can help us. We should head there when we get to the surface.” Suddenly he lost his footing, and my legs buckled, unprepared for the increase in weight.

“Easy mate,” I growled, but he couldn’t hear me. His head lolled backward, unconscious. “Fuck,” I said to myself. Another explosion rattled my bones. Swinging him up over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, I began jogging down the corridors toward the Round.

~*~*~

Shoving the manhole aside with Ben slung over one shoulder and an minorly burned arm took more strength than I knew I had. Scientists say humans only use 10 percent of their capacity. Of course, they’ve never had to escape a burning sewer while supporting an unconscious ex-bodyguard.

I finally collapsed on the pavement right outside the sewer outlet in an alley, watching foot traffic go by was I was wracked by coughs from the smoke. Nothing had changed up here. It was serene, quiet, peaceful. No hint of the desolation that had just occurred down below.

Ben groaned quietly and his lids fluttered open. I sighed in relief; I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to get us to the dumps without being stopped. Carrying a dead-looking man around with you causes some suspicion.

“Shit,” he croaked. “What happened?”

“Before, or after you passed out on me?” I shot back, holding out a hand to pull him into a sitting position. He grasped it more tightly than someone of his supposed weak state should have been able to, and hoisted himself up.

“After,” he replied matter of factly, probing his sluggishly bleeding broken leg. He winced at his self-examination.

“I hauled your ass through the fire and brought us here. It’s up to you to get us to the dumps though, I’m not sure how to get there undetected.” This whole world was foreign to me. I didn’t even know what country I was in, let alone mapping roads.

I stood, finally confident in my center of balance, and helped Ben upward again.

“I think it’s rebroken,” he muttered to me. “But no matter. Karl can reset it.” He threw an arm over my good shoulder and I helped him walk. “Karl’s the guy at the dump. Darren’s been meeting with him for a few months...about since we found the guitar.”

I froze. “The guitar,” I breathed, looking back down towards the sewer hole we’d just exited. I thought of the flames licking up its paint job...

“We got it out,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He patted the oily satchel that was slung over one arm protectively, and gave me a crooked smile.

“Thank God,” I replied. We started walking again. “Now, tell me about this Karl guy.”

~*~*~

After a few hours, we reached the outskirts of the dumps. Ben had passed out for an hour in the middle of our journey, which led to some interesting detours, but we’d not run into any trouble. If anything, we were just considered someone’s hired help, or some escaped petty thieves, I assume. We stuck to shadows until we reached our destination.

Ben led me to a trench I’d never noticed before, a deep crevice between two giant heaps of garbage and junk. In the hollow I could see the lower level of the disposal; needles, dirt, mostly objects so composed they were beyond recognition. Garbage that had rested here for near 100 years. We came to the door of the side of an airplane, the rest of which was covered by garbage. I had no way of knowing how large it was. He leaned heavily against the door and wrapped on it four times.

Darren appeared in the threshold.

“Jesus!” he gasped, looking at both of us, the ushered us both inside.

“Not quite,” Ben joked, and I smiled quietly. Darren looked immensely happy and distraught at the same time. “Was it all burned?” he asked quietly as we followed him into the sanctuary of the airplane.

“There’ll be time for those questions later,” came a voice from the shadows. I squinted for a face.

“That’s Karl,” Ben whispered to me, his voice nearer than I expected. He still leaned on me, but lighter now, with Darren on the other side.

“Let’s get a look at those injuries, shall we?” Karl stepped out. He was wiry, and dressed all in black, in some fabric that I didn’t recognize. No doubt something he’d pulled from the walls of compacted rubbish that surrounded us, which seemed to be lacquered in place.

I helped Ben further inside the airplane, and Darren assisted me in settling him comfortably in the tail, on a pile of pillows spurting their stuffing. Karl busied himself examining Ben’s leg, and the makeshift tourniquet that had been hidden from me under his bloodied pants. Ben had been stabbed just below the knee with a splinter of wood, which Karl gripped with a bit of certainty.

He looked up at me, and I blinked in shock. His eyes were disturbingly innocent, though the face that framed them was as harrowed and trialed as any of our own. They sparkled with concern, and a hidden hope. “This is going to hurt,” he said to me. “A lot.”

I nodded, and realized distractedly what he meant. I turned to Ben. His eyes were rolled up partially into his head, and Darren was talking to him soothingly.

“Ben?” I said, quietly. His eyelids fluttered shut, but the grip he had on my lower arm increased. “Hold on,” I said to him, and, turning back to Karl, nodded.

He yanked out the shaft of wood, and Ben’s scream echoed in the small metal space.

tbc in part six...