Down The Path

  Copyright © 2012 by Travis Mohrman

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2012

  DeadPixel Publications.com

  ISBN 1-4811065-6-2

  Travismohrman@gmail.com

  www.TravisMohrman.com

  To my mother,

  for always teaching me

  it’s never too late

  to start something new

  Part I

  The City

  1

  Cooper was sick of eating mushy carp. Nearly every day of his twenty-year existence, he had been forced to eat this mushy fish that smelled faintly of mud. Sometimes one of the old timers would find a stash of salt and smoke the fish. It was much better smoked, mainly because the salt and smoke covered every last bit of the natural flavor. Even just salt dried, the fish was much more palatable. No one had found any salt in a long time though, so plain, mushy carp was on the menu yet again.

  He was planning to go down to the shore after work and gather some mussels. They didn’t taste any better, but their texture was rubbery once cooked, and it provided a change from mushy. That was what his life had become, looking forward to trading one bad texture for another just for some variance in his monochromatic life.

  As usually happened when he walked to work, he thought about life inside this city. He was the only child born in generations with red hair. At first, the other people took this as a wonderful sign and treated him with great respect, expecting him to do big things. They even made sure he had extra rations for awhile and wasn’t worked too hard. He didn’t like being singled out, but he did enjoy the extra rations. After ten or fifteen years, the special treatment slowly trickled away. No one really noticed his flame-red hair much, unless it was to tease him for being different, but even that had mostly stopped. He was fine with this; he simply wanted to be left alone to do his work in peace.

  As he approached the field he was to work in that day, he saw something was different. He had planted many rows of cabbage sprouts yesterday, and they were gone. John, another garden worker, came running over, zig-zagging around with his arms waving. Cooper suddenly realized John was not running to him, he was chasing rabbits.

  Rabbits were plentiful outside the city, if you dared go out there, but very few were inside the walls of their home. So few, in fact, that the gardeners had never needed to protect the handful of crops they attempted to grow each season. If he was able to catch a few of them, he could probably sneak at least one to himself and not have to eat mushy carp as his protein for at least three whole days!

  John ran around after one that seemed slower. He doubted John could actually catch one, being oddly overweight and cross-eyed. Cooper decided to wait and watch the rabbits for a few minutes to see if he could find any kind of pattern to their chaotic fleeing. He crouched down and counted seven rabbits in this small field, some still eating while John chased two or three around haphazardly. Just then, one of the little critters darted under his own crouched form for protection. Cooper immediately sat down, successfully pinning the creature. He reached under himself and killed the animal by hitting its head with a smooth rock that lay nearby.

  John saw this and ran over to get one of the collection boxes they put produce in. He propped it up in a corner of the field, held open slightly with a stick, and yelled to Coop to kneel behind it. As Cooper did this, John began his awkward zig-zag running, with his arms flailing about. At first, the rabbits were wary of the large box turned upside down, but after only a few minutes of this apparent monster chasing them, three hares zipped right under the box and Cooper snapped it tight against the ground, cutting off any escape.

  The two gardeners turned trappers clapped each other on the back and shared a rare moment of joy inside the city. They looked out over the field. The other rabbits had dispersed; the field was a mess. Besides the damage to the cabbage sprouts, John’s hulking around had carved deep ruts into the field that would need to be raked. It was also apparent where John had tripped and fallen in his chase, further disturbing everything. They decided they could each keep one rabbit, but they had to turn the other two over to the food reserve, otherwise, the elders might not believe that rabbits had destroyed most of the cabbage they had carefully raised to be planted this spring.

  Cooper didn’t care about the extra work. He didn’t care about having to explain the situation to the elders at the food reserve. He didn’t care in the slightest about breaking the law and keeping one rabbit for himself, something he expected John had been doing for a long time with the belly he had. He only cared about not having to eat mushy carp for a few days. The year was looking up! Then, it started to rain.

  ---

  Cooper polished off the last of his rabbit in his dwelling near the edge of the massive lake. He liked the lake, even though the only fish that came out of it were carp. In the old schoolhouse growing up, they had a tattered, yellowed map. At the southern tip of this massive, cylinder- shaped lake, the name “Gary” was circled. He wasn’t sure who Gary was, but he assumed he was very important because his name was so large. He remembered school well. Back then, the city had nearly one hundred children, and he was allowed to play with them. The kids mostly learned how to perform the tasks the elders decided they would do for their entire lives. Cooper had been allowed to choose his own path because of his hair, and he had chosen to be a gardener, mainly because he enjoyed eating.

  Several hours every week, he had a young apprentice from the school learn practical skills from him. He tried to inspire the lad, but trying to grow plants in the soil they had was not very inspiring. Most things started off good then fizzled out and died. Some of the crops only produced enough vegetables to save the seeds and try again. He thought about trying to raise rabbits for meat, but knew the elders would never allow him to feed the rabbits their meager vegetables when they could pull nearly limitless carp out of the lake; carp that didn’t eat the people’s food.

  “Hey Coop.” John said as he lumbered up to his own dwelling.

  John and Cooper lived in metal boxes that were next to each other and close to the maze of fields where they both worked. They were not friends exactly, but working together provided shared experiences to talk about.

  “Where should we move our boxes to tonight, Coop?” John asked. He frequently talked about how the boxes they lived in used to be put onto rusted trucks and locomotives that were around and moved all over the country.

  “I’ll go where I always go, John, south. I’m tired of the cold rain and carp; how about you?”

  “Oh, I would just move closer to the lake. Yeah, I bet its nice right over there,” he said as he pointed 50 feet closer to the water. John wasn’t a complicated man and even though he routinely talked about moving his box, it was never out of site.

  Like most, he feared of the land outside the city. People left before, but most never came back. The ones that did were always very sick, ranting and raving about fires and small bugs inside their skin. No one who returned survived, and most were so fevered that nothing they said was taken as truth. Oddly, they almost always had strange black spots all over their hands and feet and sometimes even more of their body. The bodies were always burned immediately.

  The condition in which these raving mad men came back created a culture of intense fear of the world outside the walls of the city. Stories were told among the adults of horrible creatures out there, most based upon the tales of the dying men who returned. The children also share
d stories that were even more horrific, although the teachers would usually punish them if they were caught speaking of it. The punishment tended only to reinforce the terrible myths of the land beyond their walls.

  Despite rumors and speculation, someone was usually up for the challenge every few years. That person was usually a beautiful combination of courageous and stupid.

  No one had left for many years now. With the birth rate so low, the elders always dissuaded anyone who wanted to leave. Judging that it was essentially a death sentence and needing every able bodied person working in the city, it was viewed as very selfish to want to leave. Cooper had heard from his apprentice that only 20 people were in the school now. It wouldn’t be long before there were no more kids around to take over jobs. He knew the end of this settlement was imminent.

  2

  “Hey Carrotop, slow down for an old man, would ya?” yelled out Walter, one of the town elders that made up the council of government for their city. Cooper slowed down, although he hated being reminded of his hair. “Thanks for waiting for me. I was walking to your box to speak with you.”

  “Sir, I know it was a lean winter, but we were able to keep some things growing all year. I know you heard about the cabbage incident, but we replanted and it only slowed us down for a day.” Cooper was exasperated. He never much cared for speaking to the town elders, blaming them for laying unrealistic expectations on him simply because he had different hair. John was the only cross-eyed resident, why didn’t people expect more out of him? He laughed slightly to himself while thinking about anyone expecting more out of John.

  “Relax, son, the garden is as well as to be expected, you are doing a fine job. Why, I remember when I was a boy it would sometimes dip below freezing in the winter and do a real number on our crops. The elders of my youth spoke of times when the lake would turn solid, and we couldn’t get to the carp!” Cooper imagined that would not be the worst thing, but allowed the old man to continue his rant. He spoke of times when their city was vibrant, when the walls surrounding the city were tended by the ample population, and they had many more seed varieties to grow much more food, many of which had been lost because of several seasons of bad yields.

  Walt continued speaking of the way things were and how every season the soul of the city seemed to die away a little more. Cooper tuned him out, having heard this rant so many times from so many people. “…and that is precisely why we need you now, son. You and your bright red hair give us hope!” This stopped Cooper in his tracks. The elder was beaming from ear to ear, proud of whatever plan, or scheme, he had come up with.

  “I thought you had all finally decided that I was not this ‘Savior’ that you tried to force me to be. I just want to be left alone to tend the plants.”

  “You’re miserable, son; we all see it because we see it in ourselves as well. For many years people did look up to you, although you were very young and didn’t understand. Now you are old enough to provide this city with far more than vegetables. You, and only you, can inspire the hope that we so desperately need”.

  ---

  Walter thought long and hard about the situation within the city. He sat through many meetings among the rest of the council of elders. Although the council had no official leader, Walt was very sharp and among the oldest of the twelve elders. He was approaching 55 years old, although he looked to be closer to 75. Years within this city had a special way of multiplying on your body.

  He remembered a time when people within the city lived to 70, although in the past few decades, the oldest people he could remember had made it to 60. Tales still circulated that people used to live for more than 100 years, but Walt wrote this off along with the tales of frozen lakes and fish other than carp. No one seemed to know why the life expectancy was dropping, but they suspected it was related to the lumps that most of the old timers had. Walter himself had a few, around his legs mostly. He called them wisdom bumps when the children asked about them. “Well kids, I get a new one of these every time I do something incredibly smart,” he told them. No need to bother the few remaining children the city had with problems of the adults.

  The fact that he was running short on years wasn’t what bothered him; he was a realist and knew that his life was nearing its end. Unlike other council members, he wasn’t even very concerned about any kind of legacy he would leave behind. They always talked about trying to rebuild this corner or that – institute a new program or job. Most were not terrible ideas, if they had the manpower, but these members were always quick to say, “And it should be named after me!” It got so very old. No, he just wanted something of his city to remain. With a birth rate nearly four times below the death rate, their hobbled together city was simply disappearing every time extra stressful conditions existed. A bad sickness season would wipe out large numbers of the elderly as well as the precious young, and a severely hot summer was even worse. Several more large die-offs and the city would simply vanish back into the land with no one to care for it.

  He had given much thought in attempting to figure out why people weren’t having babies. It wasn’t a lack of trying, he knew that for sure. He had sired only one child, even though they tried for nearly 20 years to have as many babies as possible. He wanted to spend more time with the boy, but as was the case when children are such a rare commodity, his son was whisked away immediately after birth to be raised communally by a group of citizens. The council all agreed that with so few children, only those specially trained should be allowed to raise them.

  He suspected stress and depression played a role in the fertility, as well as some unknown outside factor. They assumed that pollution around the city was a factor as well. When he was a younger man, they had undergone a large-scale project to clean up all the garbage, as well as handle human waste. The city continued with the project for several years, but saw no increase in births. Soon enough, they lacked the workers to maintain the project and it simply stopped.

  There was so much he didn’t know, and it frustrated him to no end. He knew his society had lost a great deal of knowledge in the great collapse, it was obvious in the imposing but crumbling buildings he could see everywhere. A long way down the lake shore laid the ruins of a massive city with buildings so tall that sometimes they were hidden in the clouds. They couldn’t create buildings like that. They didn’t know how to make the trucks and locomotives that were scattered all over the city, move; they had wheels, he reasoned they must move.

  After all the years he spent thinking on these things, he knew he had to focus on what mattered most; keeping his city alive. He didn’t have the ability to affect any factors other than stress, and he knew of only one way to relieve some of the stress from his people – hope. He had gone before his own council to petition them to send Cooper outside the city to find new resources or, possibly, find help. In his heart, he hoped other settlements had been able to persist as long as they had. He remembered how strong of a community they once were, however, when his logical mind became involved, his spirit faded. It didn’t really matter; he wasn’t the one that needed inspiration.

  This was the pitch he made to the council. Essentially, they would use the redhead to inspire his population and hopefully give the birthrate the shot in the arm they desperately needed. He hoped it would provide inspiration aswell as give them a desire to live, a desire to love each other, and a desire to watch a new generation inherit their world. . It was a huge gambit, Walt was well aware of it. The problem was he was unable to think of any other who could inspire his community the way Cooper might be able to. Even though it wasn’t talked about much anymore, everyone still expected something special out of the baby with the flame red hair. Walt had to capitalize on this chance because he was almost certain that they would never get another one. He knew he would be sending Cooper out to his death for the good of the community. He also knew that Cooper was much too smart not to eventually realize this.

  Walt thought back to that day, decades ago, when he caught a flee
ting glimpse of his son as they weighed him. The only thing he remembered was the bright red patch of hair sitting on top of his funny shaped, tiny head.

  ---

  Walter and Cooper sat together at the edge of his box sipping on tea they made from flowers that grew on honeysuckle plants that popped up nearly anywhere inside the city. The bush was good for nothing, except tea. The flowers were dried and used all year. Since the berries that followed were worthless, no one minded stripping as many flowers as they needed. Some children still tried to pull the back end of the flower bud carefully through the flower itself, rewarding them with a tiny drop of sweetness to lick off. Cooper remembered doing this himself, and the memory made the tea taste even better.

  He took a long gulp of his tea as he tried to swallow what the elder just asked of him. To leave this place? Really? He didn’t like it here, that much was true, but was he ready for death? After all his brooding and depression about his life, when he stopped to think about it, he did not want to die. There were still many things he wanted to do. Even though he never met a woman that he liked or he thought liked him for any reason other than his hair, he held out hope that it may happen..

  Then Cooper remembered the game that John always liked to play, about moving his box anywhere. In his core, he loved fantasizing about leaving this place, but when it came to reality, he wasn’t sure. “Can I go anywhere I want?” he asked the elder.

  Walter, deep in thought, stared off into the distance at the crumbling buildings. Cooper started to wonder if the old man had heard him and was about to ask him again, when he answered. “I think you need to go south.” Had he met with John to get this information?

  “Why south, what’s in that direction?” he asked, secretly excited that he could go the way he dreamed, but filled with dread over the prospect of actually doing it.

  “Almost a decade before you were born, a man came by – a visitor. Do you remember what those are?” He nodded quickly, excited about a story involving a visitor.