Tourist -6-



“We’re ruined,” Darren groaned, pacing the length of the airplane impatiently. We had been instructed to wait while Karl hauled Ben off somewhere into the depths of the dump heap. I watched our fearless leader’s trek over what appeared to be an ancient tin flooring, stripped of its carpet. His utility boots made a dull, rhythmic clanking sound that was somehow comforting. It was nice to have something regular.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the upward curving wall of the gutted aircraft. The floor was cold and hard underneath me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the blazing flames I’d crawled through not hours before.

The tunnels. Why couldn’t we just return to them? I voiced as much to the distraught Darren.

“We can’t go back because they’ll flood the tunnels,” he explained, stopping long enough to drop to his haunches in front of me. “They can close off certain tunnels from the Round, and they’ll flood the Musician’s Sector.” His blue eyes were cold and angry and I pulled back against the wall away from him. “Sure, they mind us when we protest,” his voice was bitter, “But if a rival group attacks us, they’ll flood the survivors. Perfect logic.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.

“The mayor’s people,” he said, settling back. “They did it to the artist colony about two months ago.”

“And what,” I asked drymouthed, “What happened to the survivors?”

His steely gaze met mine again. His voice echoed his eyes, cold and metallic. “Most of them were captured and shot.” He looked away, looking weary. I wondered suddenly how long Darren had been fighting this particular battle. “Some of them...left.”

“Left?” I dared breathe.

Darren nodded, a crystal black strand of hair falling to crease his face. “There’s word of a free country... a place with art and freedom and hope...” His voice tightened and he ducked his head, the fall of his hair obscuring my view of his pale features.

“And music,” I finished, my gaze automatically shifting to the stratocaster that gleamed in the corner.

“And music,” Darren echoed quietly.

My heart broke for him. He’d tried so hard, all his life, to change the rest of the world to accept him. “Maybe we should go there,” I suggested. He looked at me sharply, his expression implying that I should be reprimanded for even offering.

“No one has survived,” he warned me.

“No one that you know of,” I replied.

“It’s too dangerous.”

I shrugged. “So? What do we have to lose now? Everything’s gone, but that,” I nodded to the guitar. “And the revolution...” I drifted off, not wanting to debunk his life work.

Darren opened his mouth to bark back a rely when Karl stepped back into the main body of the airplane.

“The leg should be healed in about a week,” Karl said, his brooding brown eyes meeting Darren’s. Darren seemed encouraged by this. I, on the other hand, could only notice the fresh blood on the already dirtied mechanics-apron Karl wore. A week? How was that even possible? The article was quickly discarded when the doctor noticed my gaze. He pulled Darren to his feet. “We need to talk,” he said, ushering the older man away. I heard the cockpit door close with a clack.

I rose slowly, keeping my injured arm tight across my torso. I didn’t want this renegade doctor examining me until I could see what he’d done to Ben. The blonde’s screaming earlier couldn’t exactly be described as comforting.

With the man I’d reluctantly rescued in mind, I slipped down a hidden corridor into the depths of the heap.

~*~*~*~

I fumbled along the dark hallway, stumbling into things, listening to lower level rodents scurry in the walls of trash.

“Fuck,” I growled in pain as I knocked my arm into something. “What I wouldn’t give for some light!” I said angrily.

Suddenly, the hallway lit up and I was surrounded by the ghostly shadow clad figures of my past. Bicycles, cars, easels, parachutes, toilet seats, all of it compacted down to create the tunnel around me. I was too astonished by my surroundings to question the sudden grant of my request.

As I traveled on, I saw more. Rotary phones. VCRs. Diapers, blenders, Barbies, license plates... and suddenly a covered doorway, my way blocked by a plastic shower curtain with the faded images of tropical fish adorning it.

I swept the curtain away and peeked inside.

There lay Ben on a mattress, dead as a doornail.

tbc in part seven...