Peering out the side viewport, I sadly survey the bleak, barren mountains below. I see nothing green, nothing beautiful. Where once one might have seen lush trees, now there are only bare remains.
As the shuttle advances over the range, I see the ruins of a once glorious city. From my research, I know this metropolis endured far longer than most, holding out for more than a decade after The Great Awakening. The buildings now remind me of the mountains that should have been their salvation. Bare, empty, lifeless. Several of the towering structures have collapsed, spilling their glass and steel ruins across the wastes of gray stone. Some of these broken corpses of former civilization are so massive, so grand, that they have cracked the mountainside beneath them, causing avalanches and cave-ins. But no one would have seen or cared by the time this had happened. Nothing stirs, and it seems nothing has for many years.
Yet, the view below me is slightly deceiving. Somewhere, out of sight, a small conclave of survivors hides. The pilot is making his weekly trade run to the only known settlement in this region, and I barely perceive a small, dark spot which marks the entrance. I have heard very little of these people, and it is my duty to learn far more.
The transport touches down near the shattered and scattered skeleton of the largest fallen skyscraper. When the door lowers, I walk down the ramp and see the small cave entrance to the settlement. Heavy metal doors, strong enough to repel all stages of the Devourer life cycle, grind slowly open.
My boot crunches down on the rocky ground, and I see the stirring of shadows within the cave. My mind flashes with a glimpse of the last settlement I researched six months before, and I feel a sharp jab of psychosomatic pain in my back, just below my right shoulder. Not all settlements are safe for researchers from the Capital. Forcing these memories down with a calming breath, I smile brightly at the men emerging from the entrance. They are nearly as grimy as their worn coveralls. The men carry large, soiled flexiboard boxes and seem content to ignore me. The pilot unloads the three small boxes of protein paste and medical supplies, which the men silently carry back into the cave after nearly filling the transport with their own crates. I know these all contain the low protein fungi that is all anyone ever receives in bartering with this mysterious settlement. Though this export has very low value, it still seems unfair that these survivors receive so little in exchange for so much. The label on the protein packs identify them as "Original" flavor, which I have only tried once, long ago, and never will again.
One slightly older man wearing slightly cleaner clothes has stood back at the cave entrance. Now, he nods to the returning men, most of whom carry the empty, collapsed boxes from their previous exports. Aside from the exports themselves, the only thing I know for sure about this settlement is that their poverty must be extreme. Never before have I heard of anyone consistently requesting the return of such disposable containers. Finally, the man who'd supervised this exchange turns to me, seeming to notice my presence only now that the pilot has returned to the transport without me boarding.
"Further business here?" the man asks. His voice isn't threatening, but guarded.
"I'm a researcher from the Capital," I say. "The Council asked me to bring back a report on your… colony. I assure you, my goal isn't to intrude on private matters. The Capital merely desires some basic data for their demographics logs. If your need is sufficiently great, I may even convince them to send aid."
The man hesitates, then, as the pilot closes the transport's doors and fires up the engines, he realizes that I won't be denied. If I can't enter, I'll spend the week outside. And unarmed, I would be easy prey for even one Shreiker.
"Very well," the man says, "but we have little to spare."
"No worries," I say, hefting my bag. "I always bring enough to support myself. If there is a place for me to sleep and the most basic facilities, I'll require nothing else."
We travel down the narrow passage only a short distance before the hallway becomes smooth and square. From the condition of the surface, this corridor was constructed long ago, likely from the first decade of The Fall. This makes sense. Most of the settlements I've visited made use of every surviving structure that the Devourers couldn't invade or demolish.
At the end of the hall, I follow the men into a large, dimly-lit common room that feels like an old, dingy, school cafeteria. A couple hundred people pack in around tight lines of tables, and I see that most have nothing on their plates except the low quality moss-like fungus that are accepted as exports mainly out of pity. Nearly everyone wears the same style of coveralls as the men I first saw and though everyone seems undernourished, they still look strong. I note with well-concealed alarm that most of the people are in their thirties or forties, with no one in the room over sixty. The only youths in sight are a handful of tough-looking boys with weary, vacant expressions. I don't see a single female under thirty. Another sharp jab of pain in my back accompanies alarms in my mind, but I force these feelings down. Two colonies I've visited before had developed a culture where girls too young to marry are kept out of sight and secluded from the rest of society. I doubt I'll be allowed to interview any of them, and decide not even to ask for the first few days.
A man, perhaps in his late fifties and the only person wearing anything remotely formal approaches. His frayed brown pants, mostly clean white shirt and a threadbare suit jacket seem downright posh compared to the clothing of everyone else in the room. He tries to give me a welcoming smile, but quickly turns his attention to the man who led me in. "We cannot support many… guests," he whispers forcefully, though he can't possibly think I won't hear.
"I will not require any of your food or drinking water," I say quickly. "I come equipped for a self-sufficient research trip. If necessary, I can even sleep in the corridor."
"No, no, please forgive me," the older man said quickly. "We are not accustomed to receiving visitors, and I fear I often forget my manners. We will gladly allow you to stay, especially now that the transport has left. We are a simple people, and I fear you aren't likely to find the next week very interesting… you will be staying only a week?"
I hide my growing suspicions well. "That should be enough for my purposes, if you won't feel slighted. The Capital uses my findings to help plan relief efforts, such as we're capable of at least."
"Very well," the man says, failing to hide his relief from my probing eyes. "My people call me the Governor. I will see to it that you receive a room to yourself, though I fear we have few comforts."
"I've had far worse," I say with a practiced smile.
With that I am left as alone as one can be in a cramped dining hall.
I find a space to sit at the end of one of the edge tables, and I open one end of my bag. Considering the meager fare of everyone around me, I opt not to break open my sealed meat supply and instead smear some "Tropical" protein paste over a thin calorie wafer. As I do so, I notice a subtle change in the tone of the conversations around me. The people are trying too hard not to stare at me, considering how rarely they entertain strangers. I realize that the discussions, though quiet from the outset, no longer contain anything specific. Nobody uses anyone's name, talk of the day's work grows universally detail-free, and the youngest people don't talk at all. Incessant coughing from many of these people is by far the loudest thing I hear.
When I attempt to strike up a conversation, I'm not actually ignored, but none of my subtle probing elicits any useful information. I decide to back off until tomorrow, when my presence will be less new and startling. I return my attention to the room as a whole. Two tables over, a profoundly pregnant woman is given a double helping of the newly acquired protein supply. But no one else, including the Governor, is given more than half a standard serving. Most just pack away as much of the fungus as they can, and the rest is glopped into polymer bins and carried out of sight.
A man wearing a tattered lab coat is the first to rise from his seat, and as he passes by I ask him a few simple questions. He seems less startled than the others by my inquiries, and his answers feel like he's spent most of the hour rehearsing them. I finally get some details, but he clearly isn't telling all he knows. This colony was founded only a few decades before, and nearly everyone spends most of their time "mining" the bitter-tasting fungus that is their only useful resource, other than water from underground reservoirs.
When I ask for a tour, "the Medic," as he calls himself, seems nervous, but he agrees. He leads me down a few narrow hallways, explaining that this underground complex was once an education center for gifted students from the nearby city. It was abandoned shortly after the city was finally overrun by the Devourers. Much of the complex was badly damaged during the collapse of nearby buildings. Then a devastating earthquake had exposed a vast network of natural caves which likely remained unexplored until the Governor brought his refugees here and settled.
The Medic shows me one of the "mines," where already people have returned to work. Using simple tools, the miners scrape the fungus out of recesses and hollows in the caves that surround the complex. Fumes and spores fill the air, and it all looks like surprisingly hard, unpleasant work. I stealthily check one of my scanning devices and find that the air is toxic enough to be dangerous in the long term. The Medic explains that the workers tend to expend almost as many calories as they get from the fungus. Pretty much everyone works. Most of them fifteen hours a day or more.
I don't like to be lied to, so I don't take this opportunity to ask the Medic, who has clearly been coached, what life is like for the old or young. I'll find that out on my own.
While following the Medic to the room I'll be given, we pass an intersection that has been blocked off on one side. In response to my query, the Medic quickly says that that passage was blocked by rubble and isn't safe. I can tell though that the crude barrier can be moved aside, and disruptions in the dust pattern on the floor suggest this has happened recently. Another stab of pain pierces my back, but I force myself to pay attention to the Medic's instructions as we reach my room.
That night, I silently leave my room and make my way to the blocked passage. I notice a man slumped against the wall nearby, and guess that he had been assigned to keep watch on me. Considering the hard, manual labor these people daily endured, I'm not surprised by my luck at finding him asleep.
I reach the blocked passage, quickly scan the area, and determine how to slide the barrier a few feet without making much noise. Forcing down my growing worries, I step inside.
The corridor is much colder than the rest of the complex. I make my way down the dingy, rubble-cluttered passage and my light soon reveals a dead end.
The Medic told the truth when he said the passage was blocked, but as I had expected, he didn't tell me the whole truth.
Before me lies a heap of bones. Even before I do a quick scan, I can tell that these are human, and most of them are very young. Many of the skeletons are of infants, and some of the bodies are much more… fresh. My "economical" scanner reveals traces of an unidentified toxin, and all I can conclude from the limited results are that this is not the same toxin as in the mines.
My mind races back to six months before, to the assignment that was almost my last. I remember the chanting, the dark pit, and the surging and heaving of the soil at the bottom. I hear the pleadings of the woman who was thrown in before me, and I feel the knife that was used to "convince" me to join her. The stab of pain feels almost as real as the first time.
Though this situation is quite different, I know I'm on dangerous ground.
The following morning, I note the absence of both the Medic and the one pregnant woman I'd seen the previous day.
I find that by sharing my meat with them, I can get a bit more information from the people sitting at my table. While those around me tear into the food, I try to butter them up a bit. "You all should be commended. These are dangerous times, and you're all very civilized, calm, and peaceful, compared to some of the colonies I've researched."
"Peace is our way," the Governor says, suddenly standing across the table from me. A man quickly jumps up from his seat, trying to hide his mouthful of meat, and makes room. The Governor sits, and everyone around me quiets down.
Not giving up, I offer the Governor the last of my meat. When he graciously accepts, I wait for his eyes to widen in delight and for him to stuff it all into his mouth at once. I seize that moment to continue. "The last settlement I visited kept several live Devourers in a concrete pit filled with dirt and ashes."
Forgetting the Governor's presence, several of the younger men and women at the table express varying degrees of shock and disbelief. The Governor forces himself to start chewing faster; likely guessing I wanted his mouth full for the next bit.
"They actually worshiped those monstrous worms," I explain. "The pit was also their catchall solution to criminals, delinquents... and outsiders. Including me."
"How did you get out of that?" one of the few teenagers asks.
"Oh, so now you're all finally curious about me?" I say, almost coyly. "Answer my questions first. Do any of you have a map of this facility?"
Without thinking, the boy jogs across the room, digs something out of a dirty cabinet, and flattens it out on the table. I immediately see this map was made when the education center was still in use. Seeing the look of dismay on the Governor's face, I waste no time pointing out the passage that I knew to be blocked. "What's back here?" I ask, none to subtly.
I didn't expect a verbal response, but I see in several faces that these people are alarmed, and even pained, at the question. Most of the room has turned toward our table.
The Governor finally recovers and speaks. "That passage used to lead to gymnasiums, but they were buried in the collapse of an ancient skyscraper. Now it leads nowhere."
His voice has grown more threatening than nervous. Still, the time has come to make my move.
"So," I say, still pretending to examine the map, "do you figure that would make it an ideal tomb?"
The entire room goes completely still and quiet.
I press on. "This rocky ground provides safety from the Devourers, but the weariness of your miners shows how difficult it is to dig with what few tools you have, and you can't risk damaging them. I understand why you can't afford a traditional burial, and it would seem indecent to simply lay your dead outside. But it seems to me that the risk of contamination, isn't worth storing your dead inside… unless for some reason you wish to hide the deaths."
After several moments, the Governor carefully replies. "We are an honorable, but private people. While other colonies may casually lay their dead out for the Devourers, and the more brutal tribes may even feed on their dead, we would never do so. Since we cannot afford to bury our dead in solid rock, we make use of old, damaged tunnels. We cannot use the natural cave formations, as we need all of these uncontaminated if we are to practice sustainable harvesting."
I lock eyes with the Governor, and my voice grows cold and hard. "One would expect that most of your deaths would be the old or perhaps miners from accidents. Yet I saw almost exclusively the very young."
Across the room, a woman cries, "You saw them?" She seems terrified, ashamed, and deeply sad all at once.
The Governor flashes the woman a frightening glare, and then turns back to me. "Ours is a hard life. It is difficult for the young here. The quality of the air affects them the most."
"Yet the young that survive are all very strong and healthy, and they work as hard as most of your men. Further, they're all boys."
"Nature can be cruel," the Governor answers, and his voice implies that he can as well.
"It must take a lot of calories to get an infant up to a useful working age," I say, deliberately ignoring this statement and looking around the room at hundreds of ashamed, pained, even heartbroken faces. "That's a lot of resources to put out in hopes of future payoff. If a child were small, weak, or had any sort of deformity, as must be common with this 'bad air,' you might never get a good return for your investment."
Some of the faces have grown angry, but these are still in the minority. I know that my gamble has a real chance of succeeding.
The Governor has turned steely cold. "You should not have come here. You do not understand. You are pampered and softened by the idealistic lifestyle and mindset of the Capital."
"No!" I again lock eyes with the Governor, and I am determined not to let him win this struggle. "I have visited more colonies than you probably even know exist. Everywhere there is hardship, but in most places people have the sense and selflessness to know that the children are the future!"
The Governor rises to his feet in a rage, and in a surprising display of strength he knocks the table over. Dishes clatter and food tumbles to the floor. As everyone else scrambles away, the man roars, "I've had enough of your self-righteous-!"
His words are cut off. I have taken him by the throat with one hand and pinned him to the floor. He cannot breathe. People shriek.
One man protests, "You cannot do this, stranger! We are not a violent people!"
Secretly, this is what I had hoped for. "Really?" I demand, letting the Governor go. He gasps for air, and I leap to my feet. "Not a violent people, and yet you murder every child that you don't expect to work hard enough? I don't care if you think it's peaceful, maybe all you do is leave them in those chambers to die on their own, and maybe only a few of you have a direct hand in it, but you're still all murderers! How many of you want it to stay that way? How many of you really agree with this vile, useless excuse for a human?" I resist the urge to kick the man who lies panting at my feet, and I address the few children in the room in a milder voice. "Are you happy knowing that your parents would have let you die if you had been smaller, or sickly? Ask yourself if any of you should have brothers or sisters here today."
The room falls silent once again. Most of the adults look horribly conflicted, but a couple of the men show only anger, and there are pickaxes nearby. I feel the phantom stab of the pain in my shoulder, and I know I must tread more softly now that I have people's attention.
At that moment, a nearby door opens, and the Medic steps out. He looks so distraught that he doesn't immediately notice my presence or the intensity of the atmosphere. He is carrying a sloppily bundled infant, likely only hours old. The baby is extremely small and she cries weakly. A woman's muffled sobbing comes from the room behind him. At the man's belt hangs an old but high tech syringe gun, loaded with a black fluid.
The Medic suddenly becomes aware of his surroundings, and he's clearly horrified by his blunder. "Forgive me, everyone. I lost track of the hour. I thought you would all still be in bed." He hurries over to the hall that leads to the blocked passage.
Just like that, my plan shatters along with my resolve. All thoughts of the greater issue leave my mind, and I can think of nothing except this one infant. "Please," I call, grabbing the Medic's shoulder. "I will take the child. I'll take her and leave and you won't have to worry about caring for her. I swear I won't tell anyone what I've seen here, and I'll use all my influence to get the Capital to send you more food. Just, please, don't harm the child."
The Medic is terrified of me, but the Governor rises to his feet. "Do you take me for a simpleton?" he demands. "One such as you doesn't have that much influence, and even if you did, the Capital has never been generous with its provisions."
But my words and actions have had some effect. Many in the room beg the Governor to consider my request, enough that he retires to a side room with several of the older ones, as well as the Medic, to deliberate.
I collapse into my seat, adrenaline racing through my system. No one approaches me, but I can sense that many want to, especially the women. After agonizing over possibilities, I make a decision. If they harm the baby in that room where I can't protect her, or if they announce their intent to send me away and keep up business as usual... I will remove the Governor from the equation. I've never gone that far, not even in the colony where they stabbed me and threw me to the Devourers, but the sight of that tiny girl, and that syringe, have turned me desperate.
Suddenly the Medic emerges from the room alone.
"Will you give me the baby?" I ask immediately, rising and marching toward him.
Carrying the infant, the Medic walks quickly and intently toward the hall that leads to the tomb. Avoiding eye contact, he says, "What you ask is impossible."
I rush toward him, grab his shoulder, and spin him around. I'm fully prepared to grab the baby, and if necessary, pound the Medic into the dirt. I will not enjoy it, but if killing this murderer will save the child, so be it. Even if it causes a riot, I will strike down anyone I have to, and hope that more side with me than against me.
His look of helpless terror causes me to hesitate. He's so weak, so powerless, that I probably don't need to hurt him. I could just take the baby and...
I feel another stab of pain in my back. For a second, I dismiss it as an unwanted distraction. Then, a feeling of soothing warmth spreads from the spot.
The Medic's fear slowly morphs to a mix of sadness... and triumph. I notice for the first time that the syringe gun isn't at his hip.
Stunned, and already growing light-headed, I turn to see the Governor right there, with the empty syringe in his hand. He smiles at me with horrible pleasure. "The shuttle crew will be told that you decided to settle down… with us."
I may only have seconds, and I know that pummeling this man won't be enough. I turn to address the crowd, who are clearly near a breaking point. "Do you see? Your Governor has murdered me, and before all your eyes! This isn't just about fighting starvation! He wants to maintain absolute control! Will you let him own your lives?"
My growing dizziness overpowers my will, and I fall to my knees. "Someone, grab the baby! Don't let them…"
I pitch over. I wonder if there would be any point in asking if there's an antidote, but I already can't breathe or speak.
I can barely hear or see. I need to know what the people decide. Will they stand up against the murders? Will my own murder and the crying of that helpless infant sway them?
More than anything, I just want to know...
But I never find out. Blackness and silence replace my world.
Author's Note:
I didn't consciously make this story up. It was one of many dreams I have had over the years that involved the unique and memorable monsters from "Tremors." This was the only such dream in which the monsters themselves were only seen in "flashback," but also the only dream in which they had utterly overrun the world. I certainly never would have consciously made up a Tremors post-apocalypse, but this dream was quite impactful.
I remember being so angry when I woke up, because I needed to know if the people sided with me, and if the baby was rescued. But I guess you don't always get to know the end of everything.
In hindsight, the recurring back pain in the dream, and the final stab in the back, was surely related to an injury I was recovering from at the time.