3: As a Gift

The trees shake, compelling a fatty robin to fly away. A few doves crowd around my legs, to the point I can reach down and grab one.

“We do not require food, Tucker.” Mordred places a hand on my shoulder and leans forward. “Please don’t kill it.”

“I’m not hungry. Just impulsive.” I place the dove back and shoo the rest of them away. They resist, but find their way to the skies eventually. One lands on the remains of a sign. There was once a greeting, but it seems “Johnstown” lost their formality. The crusty sign now stands as an effigy to bird shit.

“It’s kinda sad, how much people worked to be taken over by birds.” Mordred shifted the bag and came up beside me.

“No. It’s fitting. If you build under a cliff side, expect to be crushed.”

Mordred tilts his head and stares at me, silently.

“What?”

“The cliff side was invisible for years. It came out of nowhere. Atlantis was just a- a thing that suddenly killed it all. You can’t protect against an invisible threat. You can’t execute a criminal before they commit the crime.” I feel an extreme pulsing in his direction, one of stress and worry.

“A disease is still a cliff side. Like the Black Plague. That killed, what, most of Europe?”

His face went a bit white, with his body still pulsing. As I think to pat his shoulder and give some support, he grabs my arm and smiles. The pulsing stopped, replaced with happy buzzing.

“Let’s look around! There’s a pretty building over there!” He points off to a tall brick tower beside the river- Conemaugh River, I think. The top is overflowing with vines and red specks.

I pull out the map and glance down. “We woke up here, and it says we should go over here first. It does appear that the building is the place marked. Easy one, then there’s another… 7. Windber is very close, Pittsburgh will be a long walk. Oil City will take even longer, then we’ve got a few places in Philadelphia. We’ll hit Lancaster on our way to Philly. Sound good?”

“Ya.”

“Good.” I begin to walk in the direction of the house, letting him follow behind. He grabs onto my left hand.

“Humans liked doing this in a lot of pictures. I want to know why they smile so brightly.”

I glance back to him, bitterly grumbling, “You already have a bright smile. The brightest, in fact.”

“Aw, you’re the sweetest!” He grasps my hand tighter and smiles his shiny, white teeth, this time revealing a crack on his left tush, his barely pointed fang. Any other tush he had was pristine; he was perfect in a way ignorant to the human form. I ignore his buzzing and bouncing for the rest of the walk.

We enter the house, the door being surprisingly sturdy. I hit a knuckle to it. Definitely not wood. The first room is preserved from nature, sporting light blue walls, portraits, pictures, and a black couch set with a matching black coffee table. The black-and-white photos look darker and bluer than they should. The largest portrait is of a gentle woman with a white-haired child, grumpily pouting at the camera. The two are surrounded by thylacines dressed up with ribbons. The carpet is worn with a gray pattern.

Mordred mumbles something in amazement and grabs my hand with both of his. My hand is moistened by his grip, but his flesh seems to burn some sort of a warm emotion into my hand. Embarrassment, I believe.

The large room leads up a set of black, steel stairs, to a white kitchen with marble counters, a small open pantry, and a glassed-in wine storage tempt me to drink pink champagne and eat expired, preserved artichoke hearts. A humble gray dining room with a tiny, raised-up chair has me imagining eating actual human food, but the chair redirects me from what chicken tastes like. Perhaps it is for a tiny human who requires raising up, or it is for a child.

Mordred points to the small chair, “That’s cute! I want one.”

“You won’t fit.”

He lets go of my hand and slaps the chair. “No, I mean I want a tiny human. Or- would a tiny android be possible? Just, one of those little pets that turns into one of us.”

“Ah. That won’t happen.”

“I dream of it.” His hands cling together at his chest.

“Dream of something different.” I think of eating the skin off of rotisserie chickens. Maybe I could roast some tomatoes to go with it.

His freakish hands clasp mine again. “I don’t like nightmares.” He releases and runs off to the next floor. Grumpily, I follow behind him.

I hear an excited buzzing, and going up a level, I find several doors and another set of stairs. One door is opened, and going in I find Mordred rummaging through every drawer, having opened all of them entering the room. After he gets through one, he closes it. The king-sized bed in the center looks so, so comfy. Soft blankets, plump pillows, cotton sheets, and a vanilla scent all screech to my ears. The screeching is lovely.

“Hey, Tucker, try these on.”

He tosses white leather gloves at my face. I put them on as not to offend him, and they fit quite well. Glancing back to him, he seems to be staring down at his hands and wiggling his fingers. Oh, his fingers are too long and skinny. I mean, that goes for his entire body, but his fingers are especially noticeable. He can reach far too many things if he tried.

“Thank you.” I didn’t put any effort into the words.

He glances up to me and smiles. Then, he focuses back on his rummaging. I shrug him off and go back to the hallway, opening up more doors. Just smaller bedrooms, with different colors and some odd belongings. One room had yellow sheets and walls, along with a painting of a kitten snuggling up to a wine bottle. The next was red, displaying many pictures of cars, planes, and navy ships taken out of a magazine. The next was pink and bleak, with a broken window exposing the place to the elements. It smelled gross and moist.

I entered the last room, with white walls and black sheets. At least, the walls were white at some point. Brown hand prints slap and smear on every wall, along with black mold consuming the floor. The window is completely covered in brown, making it impossible to see through. On the door, I see one hand print that’s defined.

My fingers are much shorter and plumper than them.

The buzzing is still excited as I climb up the last set of steps to a lab. On one counter, I spot a rifle with a broken glass bubble where the ammo would be. I feel compelled to hold it. For now, I back off, redirecting my attention to… well, I don’t care about all these bits and bobbles, but a labelled poster of the rifle’s construction drags me in. Comparing the two, I get an idea of the issue.

The glass bulb is heat treated, and it seems that one would pump the lever to get the initial electricity. Then, the energy would be directed to the bulb, and the electricity would break down the object inside for an extra burst of energy, then that energy would be shaped into a bullet form. In short, it was a laser gun. Reading into the “bullet recipe”, it seems they were also radioactive. Using uranium encased in zirconium was noted to be the “best in use”.

With a better idea, I pick up the rifle. I put one hand on the trigger and the other beneath the bulb. It’s broken, but I want to play with it. Closing one eye and looking down the sight, I direct the rifle at a bare wall. I hear the happy buzzing quiet, and in the silence, I pull the trigger.

“ZYEP-PIP-BZZZET!”

The gun flops back, the stock hitting my chest and the barrel smacking my forehead. I fall to the floor, coated in pain and static. The happy buzzing is no longer happy, but now anxious.

Mordred trips up the stairs and slides to my side. He gives a look of dread, then a crooked, fake smile. One that tries too hard to be real.

“What?” I reach my right hand to his shoulder, to which he shoves his forehead against mine. Reaching up further, I pat the back of his head, causing him to lift his forehead away. His ginger bangs have a wet, red tinge to them.

After forcibly helping me up, Mordred clings to me, wrapping his arms around me. I put one hand to his back and the other to my forehead. Checking my hand, there’s nothing red. I shrug it off and run the hand through Mordred’s orange locks.

“I saw a few images like this in the room. A cool dude with a weird face and a cowboy took tons of cute pictures like this. It looked nice. Do you agree?”

I groan in response.

“Yeah, I guess you can’t really see it. Well, I can’t, either. I can only imagine it.” He releases me and walks back, admiring me. “Mmh… I misjudged your hair length.”

I close my eyes and sigh, looking about for a distraction. A ladder calls out to me. I dash to it, and he follows. I’m halfway up when Mordred grabs on, and I hush out the clueless buzzing in an act of curiosity.

“Ow! It shocked me!”

I hold back a chuckle as I shove the ceiling door up. Or, rather, the roof door. I climb up like a goblin discovering gold. The entire roof has been consumed with tomato plants. Fat, plump, juicy tomatoes falling from every twisting vine.

“Hey, Tucker, what’s going o-”

Mordred looks to me as I bite into a nice and salty tomato, juices dripping down my chin.

“Oh.”

I sit down on a thick vine, overlooking the ruined town. It’s a coal town built on strong dirt and the stuffing of enlarged pockets, nestled in a giant valley. Now, the rust consumes the poor town and coal tar swims with the fish skeletons. Mordred sneaks over and sits beside me, looking towards the mountainside. He bumps my shoulder and points towards a machine that clung to the mountainside.

“World’s Steepest Inclined Plane, y’know. It took steel mill workers up to their homes and down to their jobs.”

I wipe tomato from my face and add on, “Probably dangerous.”

“No, I’m sure the owners wanted their employees to be safe. Lives are worth more than profit, right!”

I take another bite of tomato, wondering how our knowledge differed so much.