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  “You’re not going to eat my dog, asshole.” I walked up to the Butcher, pulled the gun Marshal had given me out of the pocket of my hoodie, pointed it at the guy’s head and pulled the trigger. He had no time to react; my attack had come completely out of the blue. Blood, hair and brain splattered the backsplash over the sink and he fell with a heavy thud to the floor. Marshal stumbled to his feet. I pulled my hand back, startled by how much the explosion had stung.

  “Shit, shit, shit Nicky!” He fumbled backwards away from the body. I was still standing over Butcher; not exactly sure of what had just happened. Barker came and licked my stinging hand. “You killed Butcher, Nicky!”

  “H-he was going to eat Barker,” I said as I shakily put the gun on the counter. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the bloody mess before me. “I couldn’t let him do that.”

  “But, you don’t understand.” I couldn’t tell if Marshal was pleased with what I had done or angry with me. “Butcher’s been here for a long time. Everyone’s scared shitless of him. He’s killed lots and lots of people, cut them up and cooked them for dinner. He’s crazy, crazy, crazy.”

  “I’m sorry, Marshal, I wasn’t thinking.” I finally turned away from the body and faced Marshal who seemed to be twisting his legs around in circles. “Are we in trouble now?”

  “No, no, no. We’re good now,” he smiled and laughed. “We have more time now. The others usually wait to give Butcher time to get what he needs; no one wants to run into him. But, now, woo-hoo Nicky, we can party. We can sleep good tonight, dig our hole, even go shopping for clothes and supplies. You done good, Nicky. I’m going to stay with you now, Nicky. You’re so much better than the rest of ‘em.”

  “Okay, that’s good.” At least it sounded good. Marshal was strange but he was harmless and he seemed to know a lot about this new world I was stuck in. I looked down and noticed blood splattered on my clothes. “I’m going to take a couple of bottles upstairs and wash up. Could you fill a bowl with water for Barker; he’s thirsty.”

  “You okay, Nicky?” He approached me cautiously.

  “I’m fine,” I said but I wasn’t. What came over me that I could kill a man so easily? I didn’t like it here. Something inside was wrong and I needed to get back to my real life. Somehow I had to figure out how to break free of this horrible place. “There should be a bowl in the cupboard by the fridge.” I grabbed two water bottles and ran upstairs

  Chapter 3

  We made our way out of town, to the south of the city. Marshal had come clean in the morning and admitted that he had his own hideout in the country. He had only come into the city to get more supplies when he saw me with my overflowing shopping cart. He knew right away that I was new and wanted to talk to me. He wanted to check me out, find out what kind of person I was, see if I could be trusted. I guess my killing Butcher satisfied all of his questions. He said that I could share his hideout with him when the winds started to blow and I felt kind of honoured by his offer.

  We hit the stores first thing in the morning. Our first stop was a lumber store where we found a utility trailer and hooked up the horse to it. Once that was done, our shopping spree began. I liked this part. We filled the trailer with food and water, clothes, seeds, and a whole lot of other things Marshal and I would need. I had a blast going into the stores and picking out all the clothes I wanted. I was like a kid in a candy store where all the candy was free and I could take whatever I wanted. I got jeans and sweaters, shoes and purses, fancy dresses, makeup, brushes, anything I could get my hands on. Marshal kept shaking his head and throwing most of it over the side as soon as I put it in but I didn’t care.

  “You don’t need purses, Nicky!” He gave a heavy sigh and threw a beautiful red leather purse over the side.

  “But, Marshal, it’s so pretty.” I knew he was right but it was fun pretending I could keep it all.

  Finally, after about twenty or so stores, we had everything we needed. It seemed like a heavy load but Butcher’s horse, who we decided to call Cocoa because she looked like dark chocolate, seemed happy to pull it. I think she was just relieved to be rid of her master and was willing to do anything for us.

  I tried to ask Marshal more about these winds he said would come but he was still hurting from the beating and said his mouth was too sore to talk. I wondered if his jaw hadn’t been damaged but he seemed to be able to use it perfectly when he chewed his breakfast. He actually didn’t look that bad after I had cleaned him up with some soap and water. Most of Butcher’s damage had been done to Marshal’s face. The bruising would take a couple of days to go down but I saw no permanent damage. He did get kicked once or twice in the stomach which made him walk a little tenderly for most of the day but he’d get over it. I think he was using his injuries as an excuse not to talk about the winds which made me think they must be real bad if Marshal didn’t want to talk about them.

  I assumed I would never see my house again, so I took some pictures and trinkets with me, not sure if they would disintegrate with everything else. Marshal said that if I buried them deep enough underground they would be safe. I packed them in my backpack after I took out the Biology textbook and threw it away. I wouldn’t be needing that anytime soon, thank God.

  Barker seemed happy as well. He had eaten a big bowl of food in the morning and had tried to carry things from the store to the trailer for us. I think he sensed that Butcher was going to hurt him and now considered me his saviour. He followed me everywhere and did everything I told him to. I asked Marshal if dogs were food down here and he said only a few of the crazier people relied on dog meat to get them through the days. I hoped I wouldn’t be meeting them. Killing people to save my dog was not the way I wanted to live.

  We started heading out of town around midmorning and had been on the road for a couple of hours now. I was getting hungry and figured we could stop and have a quick lunch before continuing on. Besides, both Cocoa and Barker looked like they could use a rest and some water. I made sure to grab some buckets and dishes big enough to feed both of them. We didn’t have any hay or oats for Cocoa but there was plenty of green grass in the overgrown ditches. I was sure she wouldn’t starve.

  “Marshal, I think we should stop and eat lunch,” I suggested. He was walking alongside the trailer. He had refused to change his bloodstained clothes until I found him a new pair of green pants and a yellow shirt. It seemed his wardrobe was very important to him and he refused to wear any other colours. He said they were the only ones that went with his red hair. The green pants were the hardest to find but a pair of handyman pants at Wal-Mart did the trick.

  “I was hopin’ you’d get tired soon,” he said with a sound of relief in his voice.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired and hungry,” he said.

  “Marshal, if you wanted to stop earlier, you should’ve said something. I’ll stop whenever you want to stop.” I looked at him and noticed that he seemed a little frightened of me.

  “No, no, no Nicky,” he tried to set things at ease. “You’re the boss and I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t be so scared of me,” I said. “I told you, I had to kill Butcher. He was going to kill both of us if we didn’t do anything. I-I just didn’t think about it and shot him. I don’t even know if I could do it again!”

  “I ain’t ever seen a newcomer with so much guts before, Nicky,” he said. “I’m sorry if I’m scared of you. I’ll try not to be.”

  “Thank you, Marshal.” I smiled at him. It was better than nothing. “You know, when I first saw you, I was scared of you.”

  “Me?” He laughed at the suggestion. “I’m not scary. I’m not strong or nothin’.”

  “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know what had happened or where everyone was and then you came up behind me,” I recalled, “and I jumped and hit my shoulder. You looked like some kind of psycho clown or something.”

  “You don’t like my clothes?” I had offended him with the c
lown comment. He was very sensitive about his appearance.

  “No, Marshal, I didn’t mean that,” I tried to mend what I had said. “It had nothing to do with your clothes. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I like the way you look, it suits you.”

  “Thank you Nicky, I try hard to match my hair,” he said with a smile. “What shall we eat?”

  “I don’t know. What do you want?” I thought that by making him pick what we ate, it would make him feel a little more in control.

  “Me?” I nodded and he smiled. “I want tuna and peaches.”

  “Tuna and peaches?” What had I gotten myself into? “Together?”

  “No, no, no Nicky,” he started giggling uncontrollably. “We have tuna first on the crackers and then fruit. I haven’t had tuna for a long time.”

  “Really? How long would you say it’s been since you had tuna?” I knew the answer but it was fun to tease him.

  “’Bout 360 days smartass,” he smiled and started to go through the cans in the back of the trailer. I unhitched Cocoa and led her over to the ditch where she could graze. I filled a bowl of water for Barker and put some dog food in another. I couldn’t help but notice that I was doing all the traditional ‘guy’ things and Marshal was preparing food. Was this the way it was going to be from now on? I kind of hoped so; there’s no way I wanted to be the cook. We’d both be dead in a week.

  “So, tell me Marshal,” I finished chewing a mouthful of cracker and tuna. We were sitting on a blanket on the side of the road having a small picnic, “how old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” he said then took a drink of water.

  “Really? How old were you when you fell down here?”

  “Seventeen.” He took another handful of crackers and tossed them in his mouth.

  “But, I thought you’ve been here for a long time.” If Marshal was seventeen when he fell down here and he’s still seventeen then...I didn’t get it.

  “I hab,” he said spitting cracker crumbs all over. He swallowed what was left in his mouth before he continued. “I came here in 1909.”

  “1909!? Come on, that can’t be,” I said. “How could you have been down here for, what, a hundred or so years and still be seventeen?”

  “A hundred years; is that how long it’s been?” He stared off into space and smiled.

  “A hundred and three to be exact,” I said.

  “I guess all my friends are dead now, huh?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Probably. Answer my question.”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I have no idea how I can still be seventeen,” he said. “I’m no scientist. I wasn’t very good at the book learning when I went to school. Some people say it’s because we don’t spin down here. Like we’re hiding just beneath the real world and it’s protecting us from the aging process. Like we’re stuck in a bubble or something.”

  “So everyone down here is the same age they were when they fell?” I shrugged my shoulders and ate another cracker. Wasn’t I the lucky one? I wasn’t going to get old but I’d never see my family again. I didn’t like the trade off.

  “You know, Nicky, I’ve been living in my own little world down here and I don’t try to get too attached to newcomers, they tend to get killed quickly, but I think you’re gonna do just fine,” he said. “I think you and me are gonna make a great team.”

  “Thank you, Marshal. I appreciate your trust in me.” I stood up and stretched. “I think we should get going though. Is it very far to your place?”

  “’Bout an hour’s walk due west.” He squinted into the distance and then looked back at the fading city. “I think we can get there in plenty of time before they find Butcher. Once they find him, we ain’t got much time before they’ll be looking for us. I just hope they don’t know it’s me that was there when you shot him.”

  “Who’s they? The out-of-town people? What will they do to us? I thought they hated Butcher too?” I didn’t like the way he talked about these people, it scared me.

  “They do but that doesn’t mean they won’t be mad when they find him dead. They don’t like it when things happen without their permission, especially something big like killing Butcher. They’ll be mad, real mad,” he said. “And they don’t usually take kindly to newcomers either so it would be best if we get into hiding soon. Besides, the winds are gonna start soon; maybe even tomorrow.”

  We packed up our garbage and I hitched Cocoa back up to the trailer. We had to head away from the road now and through the open fields. I knew that, up in my old world, this was all farmland and I tried to keep that in mind. When these winds were finished, everything would be gone and there would be no more food waiting for us at the grocery stores. We would have to plant the seeds that we brought and wait for crops to grow. Marshal had explained all of this to me. I knew this would be the land that would produce our food.

  There should be a river around here, too, I thought. I was sure that either the Highwood River or the Sheep River was somewhere around here. I went swimming in the Sheep River with my friends last summer. It was the first summer any of us had our driver’s license and we were always heading out of town in groups to find fun stuff to do. I smiled at the memory then stopped and looked down at my hands. I had to forget all of that, everything from my past life, I had to push it all to the back of my mind. If I thought too long on everything, I would go crazy with grief, a grief I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop if I let it start.

  We walked for more than an hour and I was beginning to think that Marshal was either lost or had no idea how to keep track of time anymore. I kept asking him how much further and he kept saying just up ahead, just up ahead. I was sweating like a pig and Barker wasn’t too thrilled with the hike either. I had to put him on the back of the trailer for part of the trek because his paws started cracking from the hot ground. Cocoa had to stop a few times and drink water and I was beginning to question whether we had brought enough. Where was the river? We had brought water jugs to fill once we found it.

  The fields were no longer flat, now. I could see the rolling hills of the foothills beginning and the dense forest creeping up on us. We started going up and down over small hills and my legs were getting tired. I wasn’t sure if I could keep up this pace for much longer. Just where was Marshal going?

  Four hours of straight walking later, we arrived at our destination, or so Marshal said it was our destination. I didn’t see anything. We were standing in a valley between two hills. There was, thank God, a small stream flowing through and a field of wild grass, clover and dandelions. It was great for Cocoa but I saw no kind of house or hideout. Barker was asleep in the back of the trailer and opened an eye to check out why we had stopped. He seemed just as unimpressed as I was and went back to sleep.

  “Here we are, Nicky,” he seemed so happy. “Welcome to my home.”

  “Uh, Marshal,” I didn’t want to be rude but I was hot and tired, “I don’t see anything. Where’s your house?”

  “Right here!” He danced around in circles and I still didn’t see what he was talking about. “Silly, Nicky looky, looky here. Right here.”

  “Just show me, Marshal, I’m tired.” He stopped dancing and I could see his shoulders start to deflate. I had hurt his feelings again and I sighed in exasperation. I still didn’t see anything. We’d been walking all day and all I’d had to eat were a few crackers with tuna and a can of peaches. My patience was starting to wear thin and I didn’t feel like trying to appease his childish emotions. In fact, I was starting to get rather irritated with him for telling me it was only going to take an hour when clearly we’d been walking for at least four!

  “Okay, Nicky. If you look down, you’ll see a small rope tangled under the grass.” He reached down and I saw him grab a small brown cord that I thought was a dandelion stem. “All ya have to do is pull it back like this and, abracadabra, there’s my house!”

  He pulled the cord and a huge trapdoor opened. No wonder I didn’t see it before, it had been cove
red with grass and dandelions. It blended in perfectly with everything and if you didn’t know it was there you’d have walked right over it. I stood back in awe as I saw stairs leading down to a dark underground cavern. Marshal started down the stairs and I cautiously followed him, speechless. He grabbed a lantern off a hook on the boarded wall and lit it with a match he pulled out of his pocket. I could see that he had braced his underground fortress with big solid beams of wood and that he had tried to cover the dirt walls with as much plywood as he could. The stairs led down about twelve feet below the surface and when we got to the bottom, Marshal ran in front of me and started lighting lanterns all over the room.

  He had divided his ‘house’ into rooms connected by tunnels that you could walk through with a bent back. It was all braced by wooden beams he must have collected from lumber stores that had seeped through the world above over the years. Everything looked sturdy but I still felt a little uneasy being underground. The stairs led down to a large living room and kitchen. In the middle stood a small couch and chair and then over to the side were cupboards, a sink, which wasn’t hooked up to anything and a table with a couple of chairs.

  “The couch turns into a bed.” He smiled proudly and I wondered if I was the first one to ever visit. “Pretty nifty, wifty huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Marshal, did you do this all yourself?”

  “Yep!” He was happy that I was impressed. “Then over here, Nicky, is another room.” He led me through one of the tunnels and I felt myself shrink at the surrounding walls. We walked into a room that must have been his storage room. It was full of all sorts of odd gadgets and items collected over time. There was an old sewing machine in the corner still threaded with black thread. An unopened box of pots sat on the bottom of a pile of pots and pans, none of which looked used and then, in the other corner, were lamps and lights that could never work down here but Marshal must have enjoyed collecting them nonetheless. One lamp was made of wood and had a duck carved into the base, another was made completely with sparkling crystals and still another was flexible and could move like a snake to shine its light wherever the user wanted it. There were stuffed animals, shiny necklaces, Christmas decorations, colouring books and crayons, telephones from the seventies, cell phones, old radios and piles and piles of more stuff.