Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [40]
The gray mistiness of earlier had darkened further with the night’s approach, and the ruins of the city were layered thick with shadows as Hawk emerged from the underground with one of the solar-charged prods in hand and Cheney in tow. He always took Cheney on these visits, not so reckless as to go alone. It was dangerous for anyone to be out after dark, although he was better equipped than most to take the risk. Blessed with night vision that enabled him to see as clearly in the dark as in the light, he was also possessed of unusually acute hearing. But the darkness could be treacherous, and there were things hiding in it that could see and hear much better than he could. The Ghosts were forbidden to go t at night for that very reason, even in groups.
Hawk went because it was the only time Tessa could risk meeting him.
But he was especially mindful tonight of whatever it was that had killed those Croaks down by the waterfront and the Lizard at midtown. Something big and dangerous was loose in the city, and it was hunting. If it could kill a fullgrown Lizard and a pack of Croaks, it probably could dispatch a street kid without much trouble. Even a street kid with a dog like Cheney.
The light was failing, but it was not yet so dark that Hawk couldn’t see down First Avenue through the jumble of abandoned cars and collapsed buildings.
He made his way quickly through the debris, keeping to the center of the roadway, letting Cheney take the lead and set the pace. The city was silent and empty feeling, but he knew there were things living in it everywhere. Some he had encountered, like the community of Spiders living in the warehouse complex that sat just above the compound and the small family of Lizards that occupied what had once been a residential apartment building. There were Croaks down this way, too, but not many because of the compound. The Croaks were bold, but they were wary of open places. Croaks preferred the darker, more isolated locations for their hunting. Even in packs, they avoided the compounds.
But Hawk was alone and outside, so he knew he was fair game. The Croaks would be watching.
His lean, ragged shadow lengthened as he walked and the air grew cooler.
It was midyear sometime, though he didn’t know exactly when. Owl might, but she made little mention of it because it didn’t matter. Clocks and calendars were for those who lived in the compounds and wanted to maintain some sense of a past they refused to recognize as dead and gone. Those living on the streets, like the Ghosts, found comfort only in the moment, not in memories. Most of them didn’t even talk about their parents anymore, those who could remember their parents at all. Their old families were like stories once told and then mostly forgotten. Their old families Were no longer real.
Some of them could still recall a little of their past lives. Hawk wasn’t one of them. He remembered almost nothing, and what he did recall was so fragmented and disconnected from his current reality that he could not give a context to it. His father was a faceless shadow, but every now and then he could catch glimpses of his mother—an image of her face on a smudged wall, a beckoning of her hand in the movement of shadows, her laugh in the cry of a gull. He could never put the pieces together, though; could never make her whole. Even the particulars of his past life were vague. He remembered swimming on the Oregon coast. He remembered the beach. Not much else. It was almost as if he had not had a life until he came to this city.
He gave a mental shrug. Life before coming here didn’t matter anyway. The Ghosts had reinvented their lives in more ways than not. Customs and rituals were all new. Owl set the rules for eating, sleeping, and bathing. Hawk assigned chores. Routine kept them focused on staying alive. They