These Lifeless Things Read online

  But now I think: You Army bastards stole my children and vanished and I bet you did not even fight one day. I bet you deserted. Fled into the countryside. Well, joke’s on you. The only place you can live now is a city.

  Except that you have my boys, you bastards. You took my boys.

  July 17

  We shopped well yesterday and today a girl named Polina joined our furtive community dinner. The first question we ask ourselves is: Is this person an agent? We didn’t use to, but there are so many of them now. More every day. I hear of the squads roaming the cities, killing agents or trying to, and dispersing quickly, like roaches, to avoid retaliation from the statues; but the agents also roam, and kill.

  I suppose that’s all right, to kill people who are trying to kill you. But privately I think I would also kill a traitor if I knew one, whether he was trying to kill me or not.

  There are spies now. But there should be no sympathisers. None.

  With that said, she does not seem the type. She does not seem as if she has ever submitted to any authority in her life, even the ones at the university where she says she was studying. She is a small fast-moving teenager who reminds me inexplicably of a dark gray tabby cat, or just a kitten, wearing an oversized leather jacket with a giant American flag on the back over her ripped leggings, as top-heavy as an ice cream cone. She bolted her food, even the horrible sardines, and I thought of the boys doing the same thing, not deigning to chew, and I closed my eyes for a long time, barely hearing her and V. speaking.

  V. said, It’s all bullshit, you know. Our enemy is endless, numberless, and the resources They can muster are infinite.

  Says who? snapped the girl.

  I saw, he said, before the electricity went. There were news reports all over the world. Thousands and thousands of Them, pouring through the holes They made in the bend of things, and behind Them, you could see thousands more. They will always be here. They will always rule us.

  And I was stunned. He never told me he thought that. That we were defeated no matter what we do.

  But now, sitting here in the warm room while the rain falls outside, I think: Do I think that too?

  I was never beautiful, never popular. It seemed like a joke that I ended up with the life that lined up so closely to the one I wanted: the house full of light and noise, the husband with his clear, pure eyes, the doors banging open and shut. I hated being alone. I’m alone all the time now. Even with V. next to me, I feel alone. As if the appearance of the Them cut through the laws of physics and space and time and gravity and... and whatever holds people together, rather than molecules. I look at people I’ve known for two years and I think: I don’t know you at all; who are you?

  And yet: what a selfish thing to think about the end of the world.

  I just want to live. I’ll kill to live. V. is just like that, a small carnivorous creature just like me. Falcon, stoat, fox. Not lion or bear. Nothing so big and unwieldy, but a little awful dangerous thing that kills in silence, and alone. We move through the world killing and trying to kill and that’s all we do now.

  I had dreams once, I think, of doing or being something else. All hazy now. I liked our tiny garden, liked coaxing vegetables and flowers from the earth, identifying and tearing out weeds, brushing bees off my cheeks; I liked picking mushrooms when we went camping, the swing of the axe, the gentle and domestic danger of picking apples. Life was small and safe and I saw it through a pinhole. I thought I would be a short fat baba one day with an apron full of treats. I had never been out in the world, never known the breadth and length of it. I suppose I never will now.

  SHE SPEAKS OF solar storm and abnormal auroral activity, but there’s no way to measure it now. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Darian, in case he knew of some obscure method I’d never heard of, and he said I’d just have to rely on my hand-me-down stories, because there was no way of measuring it. “But we can predict it,” I said weakly, “can’t we sort of figure out a pattern for the—” and he said, “Emerson, we have telescopes trained on the sun, not the past.”

  The big telescopes couldn’t be used back then. As soon as anyone figured out how to get the lights on again, or even tried to turn on a phone, they found the full attention of Them directed on them, irritated, irrational, irregular, and whatever device had managed to power itself up would have five minutes to an hour before it died again, normally with its unlucky operators. Long enough to field some bombers, if you didn’t mind the 100 percent fatality rate for the pilots rather than their targets, of whom the fatality rate seemed to be zero, inasmuch as you couldn’t tell whether you’d killed any of Them. All Eva would have thought was: bombers are still in the air. Can’t they rescue us? No.

  I’m so sorry. No.

  July 19

  The sentinels seem to have lost interest in old town, or maybe our smells are just less fresh and irritating to them after the days of rain; today I insisted that V. and Polina come back with me and look properly.

  We should split up so we can cover more ground, V. said, and I agreed at first; we took paint sticks and scribbled marks on all the buildings we checked. Very Biblical of us, P. said. But after a few hours, hearing invisible things move around in the rubble, we rejoined, silently, a little contrite. There’s safety in numbers, and the three of us might be able to join our tired, half-starved forces to beat something up that we couldn’t alone.

  V. is useless with directions. I made sure we didn’t double back. The trees craned to watch us, as they do, and even some of the shrubs; P. gave them an unusually wide berth.

  One of them tried to grab me, she muttered. A while back. A topiary actually. In the rich part of town.

  Some of them, more worryingly, are developing what appear to be... I don’t want to say teeth, or beaks, or both, but their branches are becoming something like chainsaws, with clear sharp items growing from the twisted bark like broken glass from a beer bottle. And they are changing colour; the bark is no longer gray or brown or dotted with lichen, but dusky violet and bronze. Luckily that makes them easy to spot, and we keep our weapons up, by our faces, as we’re forced to pass by.

  I’ve tried to kill the statues during the day, P. said as we passed a particularly large specimen, as high as the hotel it stood next to, riddled with cracks and already turning green in the damp air.

  Us too, said V. I think everyone has.

  She said, Yeah? I used a gun. A shotgun. Like for ducks? And there wasn’t even a sound until it hit the building behind of it. The bullets just passed right through. It’s like they’re not even real during the day.

  We paused for a moment and looked at it. I tried to picture what it looks like at night, when they come alive. It was too big, I couldn’t do it.

  The ground is littered with the prints of the sentinels and the local statues, though. They’re around this area a lot. Something is happening here, something is up. The few people we saw shrugged when we asked them though.

  Have you seen children around here? I pressed. Maybe with statues or sentinels? Maybe with agents?

  No, they all said, staring at me, hard. No children. There are no children in this city.

  As far as I can tell, they’re right, and they’re wrong. There are none now, but there was one.

  July 22

  Whispers, murmurs today. A surreptitious and near-spontaneous market, like the others in courtyards, on rooftops, in side-streets where everyone can run if they need to. These are the only places where I can see faces different from the faces I see all the time—V., P., A., the handful of others in my neighbourhood. We meet briefly and our eyes rove hungrily over strange faces, we seek novelty now.

  Someone whispered, There’s a town I heard of. Where people are fighting back against Them.

  I lunged, I dropped my basket; behind me, V. cursed.

  Where did you hear that, I said. An old man, a dishonest face, shifty. Look at you, you liar, I wanted to say. You were lying long before the invasion—what were you? You lied f
or a living, whatever it was. An insurance adjustor or something.

  I said, Tell me the name of the town.

  He said, That, I don’t know. But not far. Not even a hundred kilometers west. Soon, we’ll see the fires in the night sky, all the colours of Their bodies burning.

  They don’t have bodies, P. said.

  Their servants, the old man said stubbornly, looking between me and her. And Their agents. And the statues...

  You can’t burn the statues, I said, and turned, but he had already seen the hunger in my eyes; I saw it too, reflected back in his, and I stayed, defiant, I did not want him to think he had driven me off. Funny colour, kind of a greeny-yellow. Who else did they say had eyes like a lynx?

  I said, How? You tell me that.

  He said, Never mind how. Someone figured out how to turn Their bad magic against ’em. You’ll see the fires, and then you’ll know.

  Who told you? P. said, her little tabby claws out. He took a step back. The market was breaking up, the sky too; we had to get home before dark.

  People who know, the old man said.

  You mean agents, P. said. That’s who you’ve been talking to. They lie, they’ve got a job to do. Why do They need agents? That’s for humans. What are the agents doing, what are they administering?

  The old man looked at me then, and said, Watch this one, eh? She asks too many questions.

  He melted into the shadows like a movie vampire, and P. and I looked at each other; I know you’re not an agent, I wanted to tell her. You were asking all the same questions I wanted to ask.

  Come on, she said. We’d better go.

  Grateful to her for that, but I keep thinking about it. We spoke for perhaps two minutes and really, truly, we learned nothing useful. But my whole body is on fire tonight, thinking about it. I feel as if, were I to go outside in the rain, it would blast off me in steam before it even hit my skin.

  I am furious, pinioned, I want to know more—my hands clench as I write, see how I dig into the paper. Tell me! Tell me! Goddamn you! Why can they fight and we cannot? Why are we trapped and dying here? What secret do they know? Where are the children of that town? Where are their children? And where are ours? It isn’t fair!

  V. is sleeping on the floor; can he hear the book rattle against the table? I am trying to write quietly, but I’m going too fast. I suppose tomorrow I won’t be able to read this. Trying to save my candle. I’m so angry. I should have dragged the old man down an alleyway and found out what he knew. P. would have helped me.

  The way V. looks at her... I feel uneasy, then irritated at myself. She’s a pretty young woman, and he’s young too, and if they want to look at each other any way they want, they should. I’ve got no skin in the game either way. But they still look. And I still watch them looking. Wish I could stop. I have other things I need to think about. The heart beats on as if it intends to live, as if it deserves to do so, even if it can’t come up with a reason why.

  July 23

  Fucking traitors! How they creep amongst us, like cockroaches disguised as our neighbours. That old man, I knew it.

  Shaking. Can’t write.

  Later

  Ambushed and attacked while we were out. Not by the usual. By a mob of humans, silent, their faces covered. And in broad daylight, blue sky. It was so strange to see a group of people now that for a second I stopped, startled, and V. had to leap in.

  We couldn’t run, it was far too late. Ended up fighting them off by the absolute skin of our teeth. I badly injured one, leaving him in the street, and the others ran. I think: They weren’t sent to kill us, just incapacitate us. Stop them, someone said. They ask too many questions. Even though we have all discovered just how easy it is to kill someone. How delicate the human body really is.

  They knew where to find us. We’ll have to move flats now. That’s what I get for getting attached to this one. I could kick myself.

  V. said, We’re onto something.

  I agreed. Told him this was the most important thing we could be doing now.

  He said, Oh, you’re on a mission now. You think you’ve found something to live for. A ‘purpose’ in life.

  I don’t know why, but I got so angry for a second that I could barely see. Maybe it was just the obviousness of it. Maybe it was... I don’t know. I flew into a rage, I almost slapped him; I drew my hand back.

  I said, If you think that’s laughable, then you’re a fucking coward. That’s what you are. Laugh at it, then. Laugh. So we know what you are.

  And you’re a hypocrite, he said. You told me your only goal was survival, that everyone’s only goal now was survival. And now you go and change your tune because your ovaries hurt or because you want people to think you’re a hero or whatever. As if there will be history books later for children to read.

  I did slap him then, and while we were both still reeling, I said, Everyone’s only goal is survival now. And that means we all make sure everyone survives.

  He stared at me, his cheek reddening. A little drool of blood from the corner of his mouth. I was startled by the blood, remorseful; I didn’t think I hit him that hard. I’ve never slapped anyone before.

  I said, So go on. Abandon me then. If you have a mission of your own. Some better mission. As if the reasons we’re doing something matter so much to you, as if any reason could be better than any other reason.

  No, he said. I want to help.

  Because you can’t think of anything better to do with your life, I said.

  I suppose so, he said.

  We went to sleep after that, exhausted, in separate rooms, as usual. It was the most awkward thing in the world. But we’re not giving up.

  August 1

  Exhausted. Can barely move. Bleeding seems to have stopped though. Should have attempted stitches tonight, but disoriented; couldn’t see. Will unwrap it and try tomorrow.

  Bedroom door shut tight, barricaded with a bookshelf. Glad I brought a flashlight. The stranger sleeps outside, uneasily, groaning and struggling on the floor before falling again into silence. No flashlight for him; the statues roam outside, they might see his light. Not so mine, in this windowless room. Well, anyway, the sound means he’s alive.

  The classic mistake. I’ve seen this in the movies too. The stranger rescued, fulsome in his gratitude. Infiltrates the greater group and then turns out to be... some kind of traitor or cannibal or zombie or something. But what the movies never adequately show is that you cannot leave them to die, you just cannot. Something in you wants to, and you turn to go, and then it’s as if your skeleton turns, your muscles turn, while your gaze stays fixed in the middle-distance.

  Humanity! I think it only as a curse now. It’s my bane, my enemy, it comes at me in waves, like labour pains, all those years ago; the world ended and I see it again as if recognizing an old enemy on the far side of the street. You! I hiss, between the waves, in the troughs, gasping for breath. You again! And it is also, besides enemy, foe, loathed one, the only thing I think I can still love. I am otherwise dead inside, numb as stone. I look inside myself and see a paleness where others have rich red blood, or pure sunshine and ice; no, never mind the stuff that seeps through the bandages now. Spoiled milk. Light shines into me and is eaten immediately and eagerly by the dark.

  Bloody, awful humanity! I saw him scrabbling over the broken stones, cutting his hands and wrists, not crying out for help; we never do that now, it’s not wise, it only attracts things. For a second I froze. The thing after him was huge, twisted; in fact, it looked a bit like it had survived a fall from a building, and was in that death posture, twisted and curled, but it could still run. When you have twenty or thirty legs you do not miss a handful. It skittered after him over the rocks, screeching, followed by its entourage, all fangs and eyes. The worst ones I’ve ever seen.

  And then I unfroze, and picked up my hoe.

  It was a short fight; they tend to be. The statues are numerous and malevolent and dangerous but they are shoddily made, and they can be im
mobilized, if not killed; a dozen rapid blows of the hoe had its head half-off, and then it reared, disoriented, and fell upon its followers, and we swatted them away as we ran for it. One of them clawed me, deep, bad. Yet I still held him up as we found this place, darted up the stairs, shut the firedoors behind us. The rest of the world called it Brutalism, this blocky concrete stuff; now, after the end of things, we call it Utilitarianism. Because it’s useful, see—well, that’s not fair. Being a brute is useful too, now.

  I taped him up, asked him his name, didn’t understand his answer. Went in here and shut the door. His eyes in their round masks of blood were luminous, grey-blue, a small white flame burning behind each pupil like the reflection of the sun in a bottomless lake. I know nothing about him except this.

  And something else, something that makes me unnecessarily uneasy, because it’s... it’s a big city, and there must be warehouses, storehouses, caches, other things I don’t know about, but everyone now, two years post-Invasion, is like a scarecrow, skinny and tough, and light enough to sling over your shoulder. But he, the stranger, is very, very heavy. Not merely muscular but bulky. Like M. Solid, big bones and over that, the dense good flesh that we all used to boast about, even as models and actors grew skinnier and skinnier.

  I don’t want to say it, but.

  What has he been eating?

  My flashlight dims. Can They affect that even here? Do I write so slowly now? I will write more tomorrow, if we are alive.

  Something stalks up the stairs, metal against concrete. If that thing phases into this room through one of those weird tears in the air it is going to get an extraordinarily heavy tactical flashlight jammed down its gullet. Leave us alone for one goddamn night, goddamn you!