CRYERS by Geoff North Page A

been resting on his throat and keeping his chin
company for the last hundred and twenty years. He tapped at it.
    They’re still out there…Humanity survived.
    The light continued to flash,
seeming to bathe Lothair’s fingers and face in warmth, even though he knew that
wasn’t possible. He hungered for the light. When it winked out his nails would
scratch at the glass, demanding its return. He counted the seconds between
flashes. A shadow of gray disrupted the rhythm and Lothair moaned, afraid the
beautiful green was gone forever. And then he saw the gray form take shape—less
than a foot away—a face, round and glistening. The eyes were open wide and unblinking,
the nostrils flaring and speckled with something dark.
    Blood.
    There was blood on the face’s nose.
It was smeared on the lips and fat chins. Lothair tapped at the glass harder.
The clock running in his head came to a stop. Lothair forgot the years and the
months and the seconds.
    His mouth watered.
    ***
    Trot saw the fingers tapping on the
other side of the glass. He leaned over the cylinder, his knuckles resting
against its curved, silver surface. It was unusually warm. For some reason, he
thought it would feel cold. The clicking continued—dull and far away-sounding,
through the thickness of a small window. Insistently, but without panic. The
light from the corridor behind Trot continued to pulse, throwing strips of
green over the cylinder in steady, silent waves. The withered fingers fell away,
and when the light returned he saw pink eyes staring up at him. Trot stepped
back; the tapping returned—faster, harder.
    It can’t hurt me trapped in there.
    He leaned in again, slowly. The
pink eyes blinked and Trot saw the tiniest hint of black at their centers. The
light flashed again and he saw brown teeth. The thin lips were moving, mouthing
a single word over and over. It was talking to him.
    “I can’t hear you,” Trot croaked.
    The face below kept repeating the
word. The finger reappeared. It was pointing down.
    “What…what are you saying?” Trot
started to panic again, thought the thing—an old man?—was going to die right
before his eyes. If only he could understand.
    Odin…Old friend…Oh Ben…
    Trot wanted to bury his fingers
into both nostrils.
    Open.
    “Open!” Trot wailed. He saw the
three buttons beneath the window. White, red, green. The lawman had said
something about them—what they did. Trot was too stupid to remember the story,
so he pressed them one after the other.
    The cylinder popped open and bumped
into his knees. There was a long, loud hiss that faded to a whisper, then
stopped altogether. A stench hit Trot unlike any foul odor he’d ever smelled
before, and Trot had smelled plenty. He covered his nose and mouth with a
curled hand and held his breath.
    Whatever it was inside the cylinder
pushed up. Trot stepped back and watched it open in two pieces.
    The old man with pink eyes, and
skin as white as clouds, sat up and inhaled deeply. He stretched his wiry arms
out and grasped the air with fingers, long and wrinkled. He had less hair than
Trot—only a ring of light-gray, trimly cut above and behind his ears. The pink
eyes found Trot’s once again and settled there. He could feel the points of
black drilling into his brain. Trot tried working his mouth—tried to say
something half intelligible.
    “Go slow,” the old man said. His
voice was like rocks scraping. “I have all the time in the world.”
    Trot took a couple of breaths and
tried again.
    “I’m…I’m Trot. My hands hurt…and I’m
lost.”
    “Hello, Trot. I’m Lothair…and I’m
starving.”

Part Two

 
    Dream

 
    Chapter 16

 
    2070
    2,635 meters underground
    253 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba

 
    Six
minutes—maybe a little less. Edna looked away from the clock on the wall for
what seemed like the hundredth time in the last sixty seconds and continued
writing. The world would be a very different place in six minutes. She