Without Summer Chapter Four
See Prologue for Disclaimers
See Chapter Three for previous chapter
Chapter Four
CHAPTER WARNING: animal abuse
CHAPTER FOUR
Since before the first subway line construction in the mid-1800s, the separation of social classes had been dependent upon wealth. Those who had the money held the power, those without were disenfranchised. A group of individuals: disenfranchised, some mentally unstable, and mostly of the criminal element of New York, fled from societal norms and expectations. They found refuge within the city’s growing number of tunnels, subway lines, and sewer systems.
A completely new society grew from the first few. Whole generations were born, lived and died beneath New York’s bustling city streets. Referring to themselves as True Men, their apocylptical beliefs, flourished from a cult into a religion as society above ground began to dissolve in the decades leading up to J-Day. As their numbers grew too large to support as a whole, they fragmented into smaller tribes, each with their own territories and loyalties to protect. Their crude environment and archaic lifestyles allowed them to be much more mentally and physically adaptable to living off-grid than many of their more 'civilized' counterparts.When J-Day arrived, there was nothing for them to prepare for, they were already acclimated for the world that awaited.
- The Years Without Summer: A History by Unknown
Five months after J-Day:
“Cris,” Mitch called. When Cris ignored him, Miche threw a rag at him. It hit him squarely in the face and he woke abruptly, swatting away the rough, damp material. He fisted it as he looked up to where his best friend and fellow Herald sat on an overhang.
“Wha’ the hell, Mitch?” Cris asked, his voice cracking slightly. He yawned widely before standing and throwing the cloth, a scrap Miche often used to wipe off damp pipes, back at the other boy. He scratched at an itch hidden within the sparse dark hair of the growing beard. Disgruntledly he added, “I was taking a nap.”
Mitch grinned and nodded, “Yeah.” His blond hair brushed the tops of his shoulders and his crooked grin was large beneath the faint peach fuzz of a beginning beard. “You snore so loud I bet ‘alf the System could hear ya.”
Cris stuck out his tongue then smiled. A similar rude gesture from the leaner boy followed in reply. He stretched lazily, waiting as the other boy scrambled down from his perch.
Presently, the two were not acting as Heralds. Their tribe’s leader did not have any messages for them to run. So he assigned them to chart the Hazards for the Huntsman.
Hazards were the dead, abandoned areas of the tunnel systems. They littered the warren of passageways that the True Men called home and new ones seemed to appear every year. Ghost, the tribe’s Huntsman, made sure to have them marked on a map since Hazards grew and seemed to migrate through the tunnel system. The Hazards were dangerous. If one was not observant of the physical signs, one could end up crazed, at best, or passing out and dying in a trap of bad air, at worse. Something in the air twisted the mind. The elders called it Hazzard Madness.
Cris put a pair of plastic Hazard suit gloves on. Then he untied the arms of the tightly woven protective suit from his waist and shrugged himself into the jumpsuit. Pulling up the hood he secured the zipper and velcro closures. They helped each other with securing the velceo wrist closures.
Then they retrieved their packs and Cris picked up the 'canary': a bright yellow gas/oxygen detector, from one of the boxes marked Civil Defense near the door. He fit it on a modified long pole as they walked over to the next access tunnel. Lunch break was over.
The quake, months ago, had shaken the underground like a dog with a rat. Many of the other tribe Preachers said that it was a punishment, but Messenger Paul said that adversity bred. They had lost contact with the majority of the Southern True Men tribes for some time.
Reports started coming in, just in the last month, about cave-ins and a strange sickness that looked like Hazzard Madness but left people with weeping, open wounds, hair loss, and a strange craving. A craving for what no one would tell Cris. Only that if someone looked to have the Hazzard Madness, to report it. Ghost took a small hunting party to investigate the reports.
They came to the next access door and opened it. There was no immediate smell. Cris tucked the end of the canary pole under his arm like an old-fashioned knight with a lance. Pulling breathing masks down over their mouths and noses, they moved slowly into the tunnel with the tweeting beep of the gas indicator in the lead.
Miche pointed to an access tube they ran across two hundred feet into the tunnel. It looked like a surface tube to Cris. There were several throughout the tunnel systems although the markings on this one were faded. "Where does this lead?"
Cris looked around Mitch’s shoulder, “I don’ know. It’s an access tunnel.” He stated simply, “Goes up top.”
Mitch rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I can see it goes up. Aren’t ya curious?”
Cris shrugged his shoulders, “Wha’s there ta be curious ‘bout? Up is up.” He watched Mitch shake his head dolefully at his lack of interest. Mitch had always been the more mischievous of the two. Mitch’s ma had often said that Mitch had a ‘bit of the devil’ in him and that it was a good thing that Cris was his friend to keep Mitch out of trouble. Cris saw that ‘bit of the devil’ now as Mitch put down his pack and approached the access tunnel door.
“Come on Mitch,” Cris implored. “We’re ’pose ta be checkin’ 1700. Not explorin’ access tunnels.” Mitch ignored him. With a sigh, Cris set down his pack and the canary pole and followed him.
The ladder rungs were rough beneath his hands where the protective paint had peeled away. The tunnel was small and older than the ones the hunters used to gather supplies. Cris looked back down to the entrance and could not help but think about how much trouble they might get into if someone came to check their progress and found them gone.
“‘Urry up.” Mitch’s voice came from higher above him, “this door’s ‘eavy.” Cris looked up realizing that Mitch must have already made it all the way to the top of the ladder. He quickened his pace. He sat on the floor and took a moment to rest once he crested the top. On a flat surface Cris was faster on his feet but Mitch was the climber between them. Cris heard the trapdoor clamber shut loudly behind him.
“Come on,” Mitch urged, “I think we go this way to get out.”
Cris followed Mitch and leant his muscle to help to pull open a door with its hinges gummed up with old oil and dust. A spiral staircase, the only thing behind the door, rose up into the darkness of the room. “God,” Cris muttered, “we’re not done yet?”
“Nope,” Mitch replied. HCrise popped the 'p' in the word hard causing Cris to glare at him. Cris could only see the back of Mitch’s head as he started up the winding stair, but Cris just knew that an unrepentant grin adorned the smaller boy’s face.
---
Cris hurried through the familiar tunnel system nearly tripping in his haste; alight with the news he had to tell. The staircase had led to another door. When they opened the door, they saw a world aflame.
The smell of “burnt things” and “destruction” still lingered in Cris’s mind. It was a bright, dry scent that constrasted with the more familiar stench of damp and decay. The screams of panic and terror as the Outsider’s world was set alight echoed in the back of his head. He had never seen anything like the chaos laid before him. Not even the most over embellished tales of the last Tribe Wars could compare. He and Mitch had hurried back to the elders to tell them what they had seen.
Rats squealed, fleeing ahead of him across the narrow gangway Cris used as a path through the Narrows. He did not bother trying to stay quiet. The massive flow of sewage water beneath the crossing muffled the sounds of his progress. The water groaned and crashed resoundingly as it rushed down the tunnel to the cascade formed by the drop at the end.
For as long as Cris had been alive, the tale was that Judgement Day was going to rain down Hell on those unworthy to live under God’s sky. The Preachers had seen it in visions in his grandfather's grandfather's time. The new Preacher, Paul, had seen this day coming long ago. When he came into his role as Preacher for the tribe with the old Preacher's death, he called it into being during his first sermon. Paul was the first Preacher to be given the title of Messenger by a council of elders. The True Men had been waiting for this day to come for generations.
Cris remembered the stolen glimpse he had taken weeks before from the access tube. It was like looking into a glimpse of the Preachers' Hell. The night had been day bright with fires and Outsiders screaming and running...
Cris came to the end of the gangway and jumped down several stairs, bracing against the paint-peeled rail, then slamming open a service door set to the side of the cross tunnel. Taking the second to the last side passageway, he barely avoided crashing through a Hazard tunnel door. He could sense if not smell the dead air that lay beyond the door.
He rounded the corner and came to a sudden halt before backtracking sharply and squatting in the shadows. He held his breath and counted silently to ten. When nothing happened, Cris slowly unwound. He slowly peeked around the corner and breathed a soft sigh, relieved that the boy in the middle of the abandoned platform had not seen him.
Mayhew the Pilfer was a bully. He always had been. His father had been a Hound and his dad before him. They were warriors who worked under the Huntsman to protect the True Men, but Cris thought that Mayhew was not cut out for that role. To Cris and many others, including Mayhews father, the older boy had only ever been and only would ever be a Pilfer: a thief, a scavenger. That opinion only made Mayhew meaner.
When Ghost led the hunting party some weeks back, he took several of the older boys with him as training Hounds. Cris and Miche were too young but Mayhew was old enough. Cris wished that he could have gone with the Hounds but was glad not to have to deal with the older boy. The older boy had tormented Cris and all of his friends at one time or another. Cris had never liked Mayhew. He liked the older boy even less after the group had returned.
The fat black rat made angry cat-like hissing sounds as he taunted it with a metal rod. The rat made to dodge the older boy but before it could, Mayhew jumped to cover it with a bucket. He had to hold tightly to the dull grey aluminum cylinder as the scared and enraged rat bounced around inside trying to buck its way out.
“Whoa,” he exclaimed from his kneeling position. As the pail gave an especially hard jerk, Mayhew picked up the rod from where he had dropped it besides him and slammed it into the side of the bucket. “Shut up, you little fucker!”
Cris cringed back against the wall, cowering behind the cover of the corner. He flinched as Mayhew continued to beat the rod against the side of the metal bucket. He beat the bucket long after the rat stopped making noise. Finally, he stopped and cautiously lifted the bucket to see the rat lying unmoving on the ground.
He picked up the dead rat by its tail and tossed the limp form off into the tunnels towards where Cris knelt hidden. Startled Cris jumped, barely avoiding the carcass that sailed past his head. He looked at where it had fallen before turning to look back at Mayhew.
“Wha’cha looking at Rat-face?”
Cris fell back onto his butt as he came face to face with Mayhew who crouched half hidden around the corner. “N-n-nothing,” Cris stuttered out in reply. “I w-was j-just runnin’ a message from Preacher ‘bout somethin’,” he lowered his eyes from Mayhew’s. The manic gleam in them worried him. Cris knew that he did not want to make Mayhew angry.
“Rat-face Cris, the scaredy cat,” the insult slid softly through barely moving lips, “Always running. Running like a rat through the tunnels…” Mayhew trailed off, his eyes drifting off to the side. Cris thought that he was looking to where he had tossed the rat remains. “Run along little rat,” Mayhew said seriously, focusing those maniacal eyes again on Cris. “Run along.”
Cris slid back and then crawled in a wide circle around Mayhew. Then Cris scrambled up and sprinted away. He could hear Mayhew behind him calling, “Run, little rat, run!” Cris ran.
TBC... Chapter Five
See Chapter Three for previous chapter
Chapter Four
CHAPTER WARNING: animal abuse
CHAPTER FOUR
Since before the first subway line construction in the mid-1800s, the separation of social classes had been dependent upon wealth. Those who had the money held the power, those without were disenfranchised. A group of individuals: disenfranchised, some mentally unstable, and mostly of the criminal element of New York, fled from societal norms and expectations. They found refuge within the city’s growing number of tunnels, subway lines, and sewer systems.
A completely new society grew from the first few. Whole generations were born, lived and died beneath New York’s bustling city streets. Referring to themselves as True Men, their apocylptical beliefs, flourished from a cult into a religion as society above ground began to dissolve in the decades leading up to J-Day. As their numbers grew too large to support as a whole, they fragmented into smaller tribes, each with their own territories and loyalties to protect. Their crude environment and archaic lifestyles allowed them to be much more mentally and physically adaptable to living off-grid than many of their more 'civilized' counterparts.When J-Day arrived, there was nothing for them to prepare for, they were already acclimated for the world that awaited.
- The Years Without Summer: A History by Unknown
Five months after J-Day:
“Cris,” Mitch called. When Cris ignored him, Miche threw a rag at him. It hit him squarely in the face and he woke abruptly, swatting away the rough, damp material. He fisted it as he looked up to where his best friend and fellow Herald sat on an overhang.
“Wha’ the hell, Mitch?” Cris asked, his voice cracking slightly. He yawned widely before standing and throwing the cloth, a scrap Miche often used to wipe off damp pipes, back at the other boy. He scratched at an itch hidden within the sparse dark hair of the growing beard. Disgruntledly he added, “I was taking a nap.”
Mitch grinned and nodded, “Yeah.” His blond hair brushed the tops of his shoulders and his crooked grin was large beneath the faint peach fuzz of a beginning beard. “You snore so loud I bet ‘alf the System could hear ya.”
Cris stuck out his tongue then smiled. A similar rude gesture from the leaner boy followed in reply. He stretched lazily, waiting as the other boy scrambled down from his perch.
Presently, the two were not acting as Heralds. Their tribe’s leader did not have any messages for them to run. So he assigned them to chart the Hazards for the Huntsman.
Hazards were the dead, abandoned areas of the tunnel systems. They littered the warren of passageways that the True Men called home and new ones seemed to appear every year. Ghost, the tribe’s Huntsman, made sure to have them marked on a map since Hazards grew and seemed to migrate through the tunnel system. The Hazards were dangerous. If one was not observant of the physical signs, one could end up crazed, at best, or passing out and dying in a trap of bad air, at worse. Something in the air twisted the mind. The elders called it Hazzard Madness.
Cris put a pair of plastic Hazard suit gloves on. Then he untied the arms of the tightly woven protective suit from his waist and shrugged himself into the jumpsuit. Pulling up the hood he secured the zipper and velcro closures. They helped each other with securing the velceo wrist closures.
Then they retrieved their packs and Cris picked up the 'canary': a bright yellow gas/oxygen detector, from one of the boxes marked Civil Defense near the door. He fit it on a modified long pole as they walked over to the next access tunnel. Lunch break was over.
The quake, months ago, had shaken the underground like a dog with a rat. Many of the other tribe Preachers said that it was a punishment, but Messenger Paul said that adversity bred. They had lost contact with the majority of the Southern True Men tribes for some time.
Reports started coming in, just in the last month, about cave-ins and a strange sickness that looked like Hazzard Madness but left people with weeping, open wounds, hair loss, and a strange craving. A craving for what no one would tell Cris. Only that if someone looked to have the Hazzard Madness, to report it. Ghost took a small hunting party to investigate the reports.
They came to the next access door and opened it. There was no immediate smell. Cris tucked the end of the canary pole under his arm like an old-fashioned knight with a lance. Pulling breathing masks down over their mouths and noses, they moved slowly into the tunnel with the tweeting beep of the gas indicator in the lead.
Miche pointed to an access tube they ran across two hundred feet into the tunnel. It looked like a surface tube to Cris. There were several throughout the tunnel systems although the markings on this one were faded. "Where does this lead?"
Cris looked around Mitch’s shoulder, “I don’ know. It’s an access tunnel.” He stated simply, “Goes up top.”
Mitch rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I can see it goes up. Aren’t ya curious?”
Cris shrugged his shoulders, “Wha’s there ta be curious ‘bout? Up is up.” He watched Mitch shake his head dolefully at his lack of interest. Mitch had always been the more mischievous of the two. Mitch’s ma had often said that Mitch had a ‘bit of the devil’ in him and that it was a good thing that Cris was his friend to keep Mitch out of trouble. Cris saw that ‘bit of the devil’ now as Mitch put down his pack and approached the access tunnel door.
“Come on Mitch,” Cris implored. “We’re ’pose ta be checkin’ 1700. Not explorin’ access tunnels.” Mitch ignored him. With a sigh, Cris set down his pack and the canary pole and followed him.
The ladder rungs were rough beneath his hands where the protective paint had peeled away. The tunnel was small and older than the ones the hunters used to gather supplies. Cris looked back down to the entrance and could not help but think about how much trouble they might get into if someone came to check their progress and found them gone.
“‘Urry up.” Mitch’s voice came from higher above him, “this door’s ‘eavy.” Cris looked up realizing that Mitch must have already made it all the way to the top of the ladder. He quickened his pace. He sat on the floor and took a moment to rest once he crested the top. On a flat surface Cris was faster on his feet but Mitch was the climber between them. Cris heard the trapdoor clamber shut loudly behind him.
“Come on,” Mitch urged, “I think we go this way to get out.”
Cris followed Mitch and leant his muscle to help to pull open a door with its hinges gummed up with old oil and dust. A spiral staircase, the only thing behind the door, rose up into the darkness of the room. “God,” Cris muttered, “we’re not done yet?”
“Nope,” Mitch replied. HCrise popped the 'p' in the word hard causing Cris to glare at him. Cris could only see the back of Mitch’s head as he started up the winding stair, but Cris just knew that an unrepentant grin adorned the smaller boy’s face.
---
Cris hurried through the familiar tunnel system nearly tripping in his haste; alight with the news he had to tell. The staircase had led to another door. When they opened the door, they saw a world aflame.
The smell of “burnt things” and “destruction” still lingered in Cris’s mind. It was a bright, dry scent that constrasted with the more familiar stench of damp and decay. The screams of panic and terror as the Outsider’s world was set alight echoed in the back of his head. He had never seen anything like the chaos laid before him. Not even the most over embellished tales of the last Tribe Wars could compare. He and Mitch had hurried back to the elders to tell them what they had seen.
Rats squealed, fleeing ahead of him across the narrow gangway Cris used as a path through the Narrows. He did not bother trying to stay quiet. The massive flow of sewage water beneath the crossing muffled the sounds of his progress. The water groaned and crashed resoundingly as it rushed down the tunnel to the cascade formed by the drop at the end.
For as long as Cris had been alive, the tale was that Judgement Day was going to rain down Hell on those unworthy to live under God’s sky. The Preachers had seen it in visions in his grandfather's grandfather's time. The new Preacher, Paul, had seen this day coming long ago. When he came into his role as Preacher for the tribe with the old Preacher's death, he called it into being during his first sermon. Paul was the first Preacher to be given the title of Messenger by a council of elders. The True Men had been waiting for this day to come for generations.
Cris remembered the stolen glimpse he had taken weeks before from the access tube. It was like looking into a glimpse of the Preachers' Hell. The night had been day bright with fires and Outsiders screaming and running...
Cris came to the end of the gangway and jumped down several stairs, bracing against the paint-peeled rail, then slamming open a service door set to the side of the cross tunnel. Taking the second to the last side passageway, he barely avoided crashing through a Hazard tunnel door. He could sense if not smell the dead air that lay beyond the door.
He rounded the corner and came to a sudden halt before backtracking sharply and squatting in the shadows. He held his breath and counted silently to ten. When nothing happened, Cris slowly unwound. He slowly peeked around the corner and breathed a soft sigh, relieved that the boy in the middle of the abandoned platform had not seen him.
Mayhew the Pilfer was a bully. He always had been. His father had been a Hound and his dad before him. They were warriors who worked under the Huntsman to protect the True Men, but Cris thought that Mayhew was not cut out for that role. To Cris and many others, including Mayhews father, the older boy had only ever been and only would ever be a Pilfer: a thief, a scavenger. That opinion only made Mayhew meaner.
When Ghost led the hunting party some weeks back, he took several of the older boys with him as training Hounds. Cris and Miche were too young but Mayhew was old enough. Cris wished that he could have gone with the Hounds but was glad not to have to deal with the older boy. The older boy had tormented Cris and all of his friends at one time or another. Cris had never liked Mayhew. He liked the older boy even less after the group had returned.
The fat black rat made angry cat-like hissing sounds as he taunted it with a metal rod. The rat made to dodge the older boy but before it could, Mayhew jumped to cover it with a bucket. He had to hold tightly to the dull grey aluminum cylinder as the scared and enraged rat bounced around inside trying to buck its way out.
“Whoa,” he exclaimed from his kneeling position. As the pail gave an especially hard jerk, Mayhew picked up the rod from where he had dropped it besides him and slammed it into the side of the bucket. “Shut up, you little fucker!”
Cris cringed back against the wall, cowering behind the cover of the corner. He flinched as Mayhew continued to beat the rod against the side of the metal bucket. He beat the bucket long after the rat stopped making noise. Finally, he stopped and cautiously lifted the bucket to see the rat lying unmoving on the ground.
He picked up the dead rat by its tail and tossed the limp form off into the tunnels towards where Cris knelt hidden. Startled Cris jumped, barely avoiding the carcass that sailed past his head. He looked at where it had fallen before turning to look back at Mayhew.
“Wha’cha looking at Rat-face?”
Cris fell back onto his butt as he came face to face with Mayhew who crouched half hidden around the corner. “N-n-nothing,” Cris stuttered out in reply. “I w-was j-just runnin’ a message from Preacher ‘bout somethin’,” he lowered his eyes from Mayhew’s. The manic gleam in them worried him. Cris knew that he did not want to make Mayhew angry.
“Rat-face Cris, the scaredy cat,” the insult slid softly through barely moving lips, “Always running. Running like a rat through the tunnels…” Mayhew trailed off, his eyes drifting off to the side. Cris thought that he was looking to where he had tossed the rat remains. “Run along little rat,” Mayhew said seriously, focusing those maniacal eyes again on Cris. “Run along.”
Cris slid back and then crawled in a wide circle around Mayhew. Then Cris scrambled up and sprinted away. He could hear Mayhew behind him calling, “Run, little rat, run!” Cris ran.
TBC... Chapter Five