Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [34]
The old man stared at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, then nodded slowly. “I guess it really is gone. I guess so.” He shook his shaggy head. “Hard to believe. Sometimes I think about it as if it never really happened. An old man’s dreams.”
He sighed. “There are things coming out of the earth, Brother Hawk. Things big and dark, birthed by the poisons and the chemicals and the madness, I expect.” One eyebrow cocked. “Haven’t seen them myself, but I’ve seen evidence of their passing. Like your Lizard, a whole nest of Croaks, down by the cranes at the south end, torn to pieces. They fought back, but they were no match for whatever got them. That sound similar?”
Hawk nodded. Most creatures simply avoided Croaks, especially if there were more than one. What would attack several and not be afraid?
The Weatherman bent close. “It’s not safe in the city anymore. Not on the streets and not in the buildings. Not even in the compounds. There’s a change in the weather coming, Brother Hawk, and it threatens to sweep us away.”
“It won’t sweep me away,” Hawk snapped, angry at having to listen to yet another bleak prediction. His lean face tightened and his patience slipped. “You make these forecasts, Weatherman, like they don’t have anything to do with you.
But you’re on the streets, too. What are you going to do if one of them comes true?”
The other’s smile was gap-toothed and crooked. “Take shelter. Ride it out.
Wait for the storm to pass.” He shrugged. “Of course, I’m an old man, and old men have less to lose than boys like you.”
“Everyone has a life to lose, and once it’s gone, that’s it.” Hawk didn’t like what he was hearing. The Weatherman never talked about dying. “What kind of weather are you talking about, anyway?”
The old man didn’t seem to hear. “Sometimes it’s best to get far away from a storm, not try to ride it out.”
Hawk lost the last of his patience. “I’ll be leaving here one day soon, don’t you worry! Maybe I’ll leave now! I’ll just pack up and go! I’ll take the Ghosts out of this garbage pit and find a new home, a better home!”
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He didn’t really mean to speak them, but the old man was always predicting something dire, always forecasting something awful, and this time it just got to him. What was the point, after all? How much worse could things get than they were now?
The Weatherman didn’t seem to notice his distress. He turned away and looked off into the mist that hung over the bay. “Well, Brother Hawk, there’s better places to be than here, I guess. But I don’t know where they are. Most of the cities are ruined. Most of the country is dust and poison. The compounds are the way of things now, and they won’t last. Can’t, with what’s coming. The worst hasn’t reached us yet, but it will. It will.”
Hawk shifted his feet from side to side, suddenly anxious to be gone. He glanced around the waterfront, then back at the old man.
“You better watch out for yourself,” he said. “Whatever’s out there in the city isn’t anything you want to run across.”
The Weatherman didn’t reply. He didn’t even look around.
“I’ll come back down in a few days to see if you’ve seen anything else.”
No response. Then suddenly, the old man said, “If you leave, Brother Hawk, will you take me with you?”
The question was so unexpected that for a moment Hawk was unable to reply.
He didn’t really want to take the old man with him, but he knew he couldn’t leave him behind.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “All right. If you still want to come when it’s time.” He paused. “I have to go now.”
He walked back down the dockside, unhappy with himself for reasons he couldn’t define, irritated that he had come at all. Nothing much had been accomplished by doing do. He glanced over at Cheney, who was fanned out to his right, big head lowered and swinging from side to side.
From behind him, the thin, high voice tracked his steps.
Happy Humanity sat on a wall. Happy Humanity had a great fall. All of our efforts to put him to mend Couldn’t make Happy